Petunia in an Onion Patch

Mr H and I had another discussion about saving for retirement. ** As I've said before, Mr H's plan is to spend what's available to us now, work until he can't work any more, then let the government take care of him. I don't like this plan. . . at all. I would rather save money now for retirement so we'll have more options when we're elderly. Mr H seems to like the idea of saving for retirement. . . but he's not invested in it. I've been down this road with him before - it means he pays lip-service to the goal, and things go along well - as long as I'm doing the work. But in the end I realize that I'm by myself. It's a crappy way to pursue mutual goals.

After we'd gone down the "How are we going to rearrange the budget to save for retirement?" road for at least an hour, I could see the above scenario developing. Mr H agreed to saving a percentage of our income but with heel-dragging, moaning, and "woe is me". So I backed up. I don't think the problem right now is "How are we going to save for retirement?" but "Why should I (Mr H) save for retirement? What's in it for me?" While Mr H thinks it sounds like a nice idea, he still doesn't see a need for it.

"Why should we eat rice and beans now so we can eat rice and beans later?" "We need to get some enjoyment (with a new TV, vacation, etc.) out of life." "We could die tomorrow. Why sacrifice now?" We can talk all we want about how to shift the money around, but unless he's invested he won't be willing to work hard and to make the sacrifices it takes to save. He's very comfortable with the way things are.

We agreed to discuss it again this Sunday. Of late Mr H has been very good about keeping his appointments with me for these discussions. But I'm not waiting until Sunday to see what happens. I'm going to prepare in advance. And I'm not going to jump into "How do we do this?" - I'm going to prepare for "What's in it for me?"

Mr H is a very visual person, and probably a visual thinker. A spreadsheet, a list of bullet points, a lecture - he tunes out. The trick is how how to sell him on the importance of saving for retirement using visual methods, and with enough impact to get his buy in. I'm not as visual. . . but I'm motivated to convince him that this is important to him as well. I'll keep you posted.

** I actually thought this was going to be a discussion about generating more income, and had my list ready. We didn't discuss it.

In late April I rolled over my 401k to an IRA. The 401k was with my previous employer, which was sold to another company. I decided that it was time to get out. Actually it was past time but I have been busy with other things.

The IRA is with a reputable company, and I rolled over all of the 401k into a money market fund. I knew that I wouldn't leave it there, but wanted to get the roll over done as quickly as possible.

May has come and gone - it's a tidal wave of activity for people with school-aged children, whose school ends in mid-June. I finally sat down today and moved the money from the money market into various mutual funds. There's nothing terribly exciting about that, except that it's off my task list.

In the process I decided that I ought to study investing a bit more. I know some basics. . . probably not as much as many people here, but more than the average American I'd guess.

In the fall Daisy's coming home for school. She was homeschooled prior to this year. One of the benefits of "away" school for her has been studying with other people. I decided that I'll do a little home school myself next fall. I'll take Latin with her*, I thought I'd review Algebra**, maybe read some history. . . and now I think I'll add investing to my coursework. . .



*Yes, she has studied Latin this year - she likes it and wants to continue. I know nothing, so I guess we'll both learn together. She likes the idea that she knows more than me.

** I am having way too much fun tutoring math.

At some point during our latest car saga I caught Mr H and told him that we needed to discuss car replacement. He told me that he didn't have time/was too tired/some reason he couldn't do it right then. I said, "Okay, when?" "June 1st" was the reply. He surprised me by remembering this appointment and appearing willing to have the discussion. Frequently he "forgets" this kind of thing.

What came out of this discussion was that we should save about $10,000 for a replacement vehicle.

But as I thought about it, I was uneasy. There is no deadline, and no source for the money for this savings. This means in another year we will have the same conversation because no action will have occurred during that time period. I went back to him and requested a further discussion. It was down hill from there.

Basically, my experience has been problem occurs --> I bring problem to Mr H's attention --> I suggest we work to solve the problem --> Mr H verbally attacks me/reacts by "solving" the problem with the first solution that comes to his head (even/especially if it's one we both hate and it doesn't solve the problem!) --> I later solve the problem by myself or the problem remains unsolved (and uncomfortable for me) --> Mr H experiences that everything "just works out". Dysfunctional? You bet. At the beginning of our marriage I gave him the benefit of the doubt, believed that he would eventually come to see how unproductive this was. Now I realize that I was just way too nice and forgiving . . . but trying to change this pattern requires the full emotional amour because no woman wants to be verbally attacked by her husband. . . and yet I've been down this path enough to know that's pretty much what's going to happen. Much earlier in our marriage I asked Mr H what I could say or do differently to help this situation, or if there was another approach to take. He had no response.

In this instance, the problem is that there is no obvious source of money for these savings. Our budget's stretched pretty thin. Pointing this out to Mr H, and that, if it's not funded it's not a priority, and that bothers me . . . brought the predictable response. Mr H's solution was to sell my car and have us become a one car family, and since Daisy will be homeschooled next year she and I could just stay home all the time. He needs his car for work so of course he'll get to have it every day. It was way less pleasant than I'm reporting it here. Ouch.

At the heart of it though is what seems to be an irresolvable difference in priorities, and an unwillingness to change with circumstances.

Our income is unlikely to go up in the near future. Mr H will not work harder/smarter/more than he is now, and I'm unwilling to sacrifice my home life at this time for another corporate job. (I had two working parents and neither of them were really around to raise us. When Daisy is 18 I plan to work full time and more to make up for what was not saved during this time.) I'm very concerned about retirement savings, planning ahead for seen and unseen expenditures, and having a home life. Mr H appears to be concerned about keeping the house (and only this house) and not having to make any changes to anything about his life. I would be happy to sell the house and go to one car if we lived somewhere where walking and public transportation were more workable. Mr H wouldn't hear of selling this house. We're at something of an impasse.

In the end, I relentlessly forced us to stay focused on the problem. Mr H backed down a bit and apologized. It's progress for us, although sometimes I feel like having to work this hard (and unpleasantly) with him on *every* problem that occurs in our lives is going to kill me.

We agreed to discuss income generating ideas and saving ideas in a couple of weeks.

That's what my mom said to me when I told her about fixing my car with Google.

Thanks Ma, for your vote of confidence in me.

My car saga continues. My car guys fixed my original problem (car dying during acceleration on to the freeway), but another problem turned up after that problem got fixed. When I drove on the freeway for 30 to 40 minutes, my car would stall when I stopped at the end of the off ramp. Sometimes I could keep it from stalling but the idle bounced around between 200-800 rpm. After it stalled I could restart it with no problem. Something about doing that reset the idle, and I could continue on my drive without the problem.

When the problem first turned up, the car guys thought that the replacement part was bad. I took my car back in, they replaced the part (free of charge), same problem. Took it in again, they replaced the second replacement part (free of charge - different manufacturer), same problem. Told them I thought they ought to look at other things that might be causing it. They replaced a different part (charged for service). Same problem.

I then Googled my car's problem - "make model year car stalls when warm" or something like that. Found a bulletin board with seven pages of postings - car owners of my car's make and model discussing this exact problem. I read through all 122 entries. I can't say I know much about the inner workings of my car, but I could pick out the two most frequent causes of the problem.

I printed a few of the postings and took them into my car guys. They looked at them, but kind of dismissed them. They found a part that was kind of dirty (my interpretation of what they said), cleaned it up (no charge) and sent me on my way. Same problem. (I'll add here that they couldn't always reproduce the problem in the shop. Tough to troubleshoot when you can't do that.)

I called them up again. They had become more and more apologetic as time marched on and my car wasn’t fixed. I asked for their email address and told them I was going to send the link to this discussion. By this time my car and its problems had been passed up the chain to the "second in command" of the car repair shop. He read all 122 entries and used the information to look at the car. He found a part that might be causing the problem, replaced it and sent me on my way. (charged for this service) Interestingly, the part he replaced was one of the two most frequent causes of the problem, per this bulletin board entry.

I haven't completely tested the car - just too busy with other things over the weekend. But I should have a good indication tomorrow if the most recent fix is the last fix for this problem.

And my mom? Well, I'm used to her. I said, "Mom, I am not crazy. I am smart and resourceful, and using the resources I have available to me to solve my problems."

I spent about an hour and a half last Friday morning dealing with my 401k. When I left my former employer several years ago I just left my 401k sitting there. About three years ago I decided that I really should roll my 401k over to an IRA and ordered the paper work to do so. I couldn't figure out how to allocate my investments, and I got busy and didn't follow through.

Now my procrastination is catching up with me. My former company was sold to another company, and the 401ks are getting moved to a different 401k plan administrator at the end of May. I have just a few short weeks to act, or face another layer of complication.

It turned out to be a relatively simple process to set up an IRA with an investment company (Mr H and I already have a mutual fund with them). I can put the assets of the 401k into a money market account while I figure out how to allocate them. (Note to self: don't procrastinate on asset allocation.) But there was a little wrinkle in my smooth rollover process. Before my 401k was a 401k it was some other type of savings plan which took post-tax dollars. So I had both post-tax dollars and pre-tax dollars in my account. If I put the post-tax dollars into my IRA I would have to fill out some tax form every year forever (or, I suppose, until those dollars were no longer in my account). I like simple. I do not want to do additional tax forms. I opted to have them send me those dollars as a check. (Note to self: Don't sit on the check.) Because they are post tax dollars there are no tax consequences for me.

While I was on the phone with the 401k person, after I told them to send me a check, they suggested all kinds of things I could do with the money including buying a new car. I ignored the suggestions, but that afternoon as I was accelerating down a long on ramp to get on the freeway I noticed that my car was decelerating. I had just enough time to pull over onto the shoulder of the on-ramp before all the lights came on on my dash and my car died completely.

As I sat in my car on the side of the road for over an hour waiting for the tow truck, I felt tempted by newer cars. But at this point I'm not going to give in. My current plan is to see if I can get my car to last until Daisy's high school graduation, then get a Vespa or something similar. My car is 16 years old, and Daisy has another 9 years before graduation. We'll see how this plays out.

Well, my blogoversary has passed without much fanfare. I don't post much and I guess I'm kind of a lazy blogger. But even the little I've done in the past year has brought some positive changes in my life.

* While Mr H and I are unlikely to ever be on the same page, we have more productive discussions. I initiate most conversations, but every now and again he'll bring up something related to our financial life. It's progress.

* I've learned that to engage Mr H in almost anything involves stages. First he ignores what I'm saying, then I provoke him**, then he reacts, then I gently tell him that he's reacting and suggest that we look at different options to solve the problem. Then he'll come through. Kind of. It's kind of dysfunctional, but it works better than him ignoring the situation and me finally just solving the problem on my own. (That has been the dynamic for most of our marriage.) Not all of our discussions are this way, but bringing up anything new is.

* We have a budget that balances for Checkbook One. It took several months to get there. It didn't balance, really, for about five years.

* We have a grocery/food budget that balances. We have never spent that little on food. We're eating well. I actually don't mind this part. It's fun to get creative with food, and I have done it for many years. I'm just way more conscious now, trying to use leftovers before they spoil and figure out how to have great dinners with lower cost foods.

* We have an emergency fund, that is designated as an emergency fund. I feel a lot less anxious.

* We have a plan for increasing retirement savings.


Everyone here has been so kind and helpful. I have been so grateful for the support. Thank you all so much!


** Believe me, I really don't want to provoke him. However it seems to be the only way I can get him to engage.

In my last post I commented on our small retirement savings. After reading the comments I decided to do a bit more research.

I read the following statistics in different places on the web:
* The average 45-54 year old has less than $25,000 saved for retirement.
* 53% of people 45-54 have 50,000 or less saved (29% have less than $10,000 saved)
* Baby boomers between 41 and 54 have retirement savings of $30,000 (this must have been an older article - if the baby boom cuts off in 1965, the youngest of this group would be 43 now)

Wow. If all this is true we are in better shape. . . well, than average.

Does anyone know where to get accurate statistics? One website I read said that that particular organization had surveyed 1000 people. That doesn't seem like a very representative sample.

As you can probably guess, retirement is a source of contention in the onion patch.

Mr H's approach is: he'll work until he can't work any more, then he'll live on savings, then the government will support him. (You'll notice that it's "he" and not "we", although I think the "we" is somewhat implied.)

This is not what I would want for my older age, but I'm willing to live with it - up to a point. In order to live on savings, we have to be saving now, and all the time until then. We've saved relatively little - we have the 401k that I contributed to during my corporate years. That is 10 (or is it 9? I may not have been able to contribute the first year, although I don't remember now) years out of a total of 28 years of my working life (starting the count at age 18). DH has no pensions or 401k's from any present or past employers from his 28 years of working life.

Now that the budget is balancing with regularity I'm turning my sights toward saving 15% of our income savings for retirement. Is this enough? Probably not, but we have to start some where.

It seems like an impossible goal, but then we've managed to keep the food budget at a limit that I never would have imagined a year ago, and it hasn't been that hard. And with the few changes I made over several months getting checkbook one to balance hasn't been that difficult either.

After a rather heated discussion last week I think I've finally convinced him that in order to live off savings we have to be saving now, that he must be involved in this, and that a graduated approach (first 1%, then 2% etc up to 15%)* is the most reasonable approach. Starting in April we will be saving 2% of our monthly income towards retirement/old age.

*I have been setting aside 15% of my tutoring money since I started tutoring in January - trying to move us in that direction.

Do we have enough in Checkbook One to buy some bird food? Yes, Mr H asked me this last night. Looks like he's getting with the program.

I just finished running the numbers (I'm behind) and we had a $248.72 surplus in Checkbook One for February. Wow, this budget thing is working!

Unfortunately, the temptation now is to spend. I haven't yet figured out what we've spent so far for March, but I have given in to the temptation a bit. It's so easy to get careless. I'm reigning myself in and getting back into "keeping our money" mode.

I have decided that my tutoring money will go towards our annual Memorial Day camping trip. Expenses for this trip include space in the campground (already paid for), ferry fare for two vehicles, extra gas money and extra food costs. You would think that we would just eat normally but no. . . our camping diet includes things like s'more fixings, bacon, snack foods and beer and wine, and those food items add up.

I love camping. I love sleeping in a sleeping bag in a tent (even in pouring down rain), I love getting up and making coffee and looking at the beautiful surroundings, I love sitting by the campfire on damp mornings, I love Mr H's obsession with tarps, I love our friends who we camp with, I love my camping clothes (wool sweaters, long johns and rain poncho in addition to other layers). I'm getting giddy just thinking about this trip.

These words came out of the mouth of Mr. H on the first day of March.

I'm shocked and thrilled. Mr H seems to be engaging a little more in our financial life. I didn't have the information for him - we had commitments throughout the weekend that kept me busy. But even with a last-minute burst of spending we are still had a surplus in Checkbook One for the month of February. Yay us!

I'm reading an interesting book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It's apparently on the best seller list, and discusses why some people are super-successful in what they do. There are lots of interesting observations made, but the one I am finding useful at the moment is the contrast between Chinese rice-growing farmer's proverbs and Russian peasant's proverbs. (It's on page 237.) Here is one listed as the Chinese farmer's: "If a man works hard, the land will not be lazy." Here is one attributed to Russian peasants: "If God does not bring it, the earth will not give it." Do proverbs express what the cultural beliefs are, or do they shape the cultural beliefs, or both? In a way it doesn't matter. Gladwell discusses the cultures that produced both of these proverbs and how the proverbs might have developed.

I'm not a Chinese farmer and Mr H isn't a Russian peasant, but I think the two proverbs above express our very different attitudes towards life. I am working to make things happen and Mr H is waiting for something to happen that he will then react to. In a way we both have a self-fulfilling prophecy - things happen because of my efforts, but to Mr H it looks like things "just happened". It's become clearer to me over the last year that Mr H really doesn't see much of connection between his efforts and his results.* Which is fine, except when we try to work together. . . which in a marriage is pretty much all the time in one way or another.

Mr H handles Checkbook Two and I handle Checkbook One. I've written quite a bit in the last 11 or so months about Checkbook One - with persistence and changes to some parts of our financial life it's finally not being overspent. Part of these changes involve some real effort on my part to not just spend money randomly. Mr H has noted that Checkbook Two is running a bit low. He's concerned. . . but I'm not seeing much effort or involvement on his part to figure out and solve this problem.

I can't change Mr H's very deeply held beliefs. . . that I'm not even sure he recognizes as having. But I am going to continue to point out cause and effect in our lives, to the best of my ability to do so.

*I should qualify this. It looks like he does see this in very short term efforts, things that can be completed in four hours or less.

We spent a little over a month being sick here in the onion patch - all of us, Mr H, Daisy and me. I finally went to visit my doc and got antibiotics. Normally I'm not in favor of that stuff (plus a doctor visit isn't cheap, even with insurance) but I could feel the difference within one hour of taking the first dose. So it was a good decision. Being sick put me in a stupor. It wasn't a terribly productive month.

Checkbook One had a small surplus in January and looks to have the same in February. That will be three months in a row now that Checkbook One has not been overspent. Pinch me, I must be dreaming!

We had a windfall and now our EF is funded for six months. That would be six *tight* months, but I feel relief about our EF.

I've been soliciting Mr H's feedback on the budget for Checkbook One. Usually he doesn't give much. One day he expressed frustration "because the money's already spent". I went back and tried to figure out what he meant, because isn't that the point of a budget - to prioritize and spend your money on paper first? I never did get a clear answer, but I suspect he wants to spend money on some items and doesn't feel like he can. I added a "wish list" to the bottom of the budget page. If there's a surplus we can look at spending money on those items. Some items Mr H would like are on that list.

I've made good progress on Goals 2 and 3, but none on Goal 4.

Mr H and I have had many, many short and sweet financial conversations in the last two months. The all start with one person stating something they want or something that needs to be purchased and the other person asking how we will pay for it. Fortunately they have been civil and productive discussions. It's definite progress for us.

I've decided that updating the budget for Checkbook One on Thursdays works well. So far so good. We are still under or at budget in all categories for Checkbook One. I think we'll even make the budget in the grocery category this month and not be 21% over.

I've moved what used to be Goal 1 off to a page. It is fun to look at past accomplishments but I don't want to get stuck there!

Goal 3: Decrease food costs. I've given it a dollar figure. Some people here might wonder why the budget is set at $650 for just three people. Two reasons: It includes personal care and cleaning supplies (and also any eating out), and I value organic and locally produced food and that adds up. To bring the costs down I've done things like look for sales on food that we typically buy, change some things about our diets (oatmeal instead of cold cereal for example), and figure out how best to use meat and dairy products which seem to be the most expensive categories in the food budget. Last year's average was higher than this, so it's definitely an improvement.

Future goal: Develop a source of "egg money". Here's a definition I found of egg money:

Before World War II, most eggs were produced by small flocks that scratched their way around the barnyard. The farmer's wife usually supervised the operation. The money received from the sale of the eggs was considered hers. Source: http://www.georgiaeggs.org/pages/eggmoney.html

I started tutoring a couple of weeks ago. . . and I really like it! I'm tutoring math with younger children using materials I'm already familiar with. I'm not charging enough, and both my client and me know that. But as I told her, she's helping train me so we're both winning. We will re-evaluate the fees in a month or so.

While the definition of egg money posted above has it under the control of the farmer's wife, I asked the farmer what he thought we should do with the money. He had no opinion. So I suggested that a percentage of it be set aside for taxes, 15% for the EF or retirement and the rest in to Checkbook One. He was agreeable. It's not a whole lot in to the checkbook but it might be enough to fund our summer camping trips.

Mr H and I had a discussion about the EF in December. We agreed to take some of his bonus money and add it to the 4496.85 already in the Emergency Fund. We later discussed what type of account to put this money in and decided to put it in a three month CD. While it's possible we could lose some interest if we had to tap in to the account, it wouldn't be a huge loss. If we don't have to tap in to it the account will earn better interest than a money market account would.

So, Goal 1 (emergency fund to 8625.00) on my list is completed, six months ahead of schedule!

Goals 2 (budget for checkbook 1) and 3 (decrease food costs) are in progress, with more progress on 2 than 3 I'd say.

Goal 4 (stay away from coffee shops) has had minimal progress. I was given a Starbucks gift card which has helped our bottom line but not my coffee-out habit.

Goal 5 will probably get moved elsewhere, but I may blog about it from time to time.

I will add a goal of earning part-time or sporadic income. This has been in my head for a while, but strangely it's also under way. I was asked by a friend to help tutor some of her children.

I've been giving some thought as to why we suddenly didn't overspend Checkbook One in December. I have been concerned about this problem since I started blogging here in April, but feel like I have been chasing my tail trying to solve it.

I've come to the conclusion that it's just perseverance in trying to figure out where we went wrong each month and correct that. (Having bad weather for about two weeks which limited us leaving the house also helped. When you don't leave the house you don't spend money or use up your gas.) So, I suppose it's not really sudden at all.

Our top three problems with Checkbook One were the credit card, spending during the week between the time that Mr H got his check and the new month started, and not having a spending plan that works.

Credit card: Although we pay off our credit card every month, it's psychologically hard to write a check for one-quarter to one-third of the amount in your checkbook at the beginning of the month. Our credit card usage increased over the years as stores stopped taking checks. I got a debit card a while ago, and Mr H got one a couple of months ago. Where we regularly used to put gas and take-and-bake pizzas on the credit card we now put them on the debit card. "Pay as you go" is working better than "put off the paying until next month". Don't people spend 23% more when they use a credit card?

Spending during the week between the time that Mr H got his check and the new month started: Okay, that was me. . . and it wasn't THAT much. . . but enough to kill the budget. I wrote about this last spring. I called it "The Dead Zone". My brain kind of went on holiday during that week. What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking, and that was the problem.

Not having a spending plan that works: There are so many ways to write a budget. For this checkbook and us, having a limited number of categories and looking at the amount left in each category weekly, on Friday, seemed to do the trick. We have the following categories: Grocery/Personal Care/Cleaning, Gas, Church Contribution, Bowling, Master Card and Everything Else. (Regular bills like mortgage, insurance etc are paid out of another checkbook.) The Everything Else category scares me - the dollar amount is limited and it covers a huge number of other categories like clothing, gifts, office supplies, household items and yard and garden. But lumping these into "Everything Else" works better than trying to allocate a few dollars into each of the sub-categories. Or at least it did this month.

January is looking good so far.

I have spent some time the last couple of days figuring out where we went wrong on the Grocery/Personal Care/Cleaning budget last month. We spend 20% more that the amount budgeted.

Because I rank among the world's biggest nerds, I actually went through each grocery receipt, categorized each purchase and wrote the purchase down on a sheet of paper with the category heading at the top. Christmas food purchases sank our food budget. Like most people we have special food items we buy during the Christmas season and some of them are expensive. The dollar amount of these purchases was almost equal to the dollar amount over food budget last month.

I showed my sheets of paper to Mr H. First he said incredulously "You went through every grocery receipt?" Yes, there were quite a few, and while I tend to be organized with receipts I wasn't last month and had to spend some time finding them. He came to the same conclusion regarding Christmas food purchases, then he said something like, "This looks pretty much like what we eat. I don't see how we can spend less money on food." I didn't say anything but I thought, "Them's fighting words - sounds like a challenge to me."

Overheard at our house a few days ago:

Mr H: When are we going to look at the budget for Checkbook One? We haven't done that since before your mom was here.


And (at about 4:45 in the afternoon yesterday):

Me: Do you have any suggestions for dinner? (I spent my day sewing and driving kids around, and not on cooking dinner. Oops.)

Mr H: (Gives some suggestions and then says) or we could go to the burrito place.

Me: With what money?

Mr H: I have $20 in my wallet.

Me: Do you really want to spend your money that way?

Mr H: No.

Me: Then let's eat the leftovers that are in the refrigerator.


A few weeks ago I reviewed all my blog entries, which started in April. I thought, Geez, I really haven't gotten anywhere this year. I'm still talking about trying to get Checkbook One to balance and I'm saying the same things I was saying in April! What is wrong with me?

When DH and I sat down to look at the budget for Checkbook One a few days ago, we still had about $2 in it. (The actual checkbook balance says $6. There is some additional money in the checkbook which is not included in the balance to be padding in case of arithmetic errors.) This is the first time in I don't know how long that no additional money has been added to this account - it was not overspent. This is not to say we don't have some spending issues with this account, but for us this is a huge accomplishment.

Well, maybe I did get somewhere this year.

We aren't going anywhere tonight, and when I told Daisy about a "New York New Year's Eve"** her eyes lit up and she asked if she could stay up. I think I will go get a bottle of sparkling cider - I believe they are about $2 - and we'll toast the new year in style.


**When you live on the west coast, you stay up until 9 and celebrate the new year with those in NY because when it's 9 here it's midnight there. Then you go to bed. Daisy's normal bed time is 7:30. We have been known to celebrate a "New Foundland New Year's Eve" - 8 here, midnight in New Foundland - we've had some tired years.

Endless Winter

Snow, snow and more snow. I live in an area that doesn't tend to get much snow each winter, or even be cold enough to snow. But some years we get dumped on and this is one of those years.

We had a snow last week which closed schools for three days. We have about 10 inches on the ground now. It's been cold enough to freeze the hummingbird feeder.

I've only gone out driving three times in the past six days. It does look like gasoline consumption will be lower than usual this month and (hopefully) allow Checkbook One to balance for the first time ever. . . or at least in several years. I don't think my navy showers and lowered thermostat will offset the extra power and gas usage caused by prolonged low temperatures though.

Hog Wild

Partially owing to the impending snow I did go a little hog wild in the store the day before yesterday. No, I wasn't at the grocery store buying milk, bread and batteries. I was at the fabric store buying polar fleece and patterns. I will use a lot of this fleece for Christmas gifts.** While there was some thought put in to this shopping trip there clearly wasn't enough. Here's what I see as the problems:

1) Too little advance planning. I did go through my patterns to see what fleece-type patterns I had, but there are many free patterns available on the internet. About 33% of what I spent was on patterns. Also, it would have been better to decide to do this months ago. Patterns go on sale for $1 each very regularly, so I could have spent next to nothing on them.

2) Went to the store without a dollar figure in mind. It really helps the budget to decide in advance how much you want to spend.

3) Did not keep a running tally of how much I was "spending" as I pulled bolts of fleece off the shelves.

4) I was in a hurry. I asked Mr H to take me to the fabric store since some of the roads were kind of icy. (I'd already slid to the corner on one street during a previous errand.) Mr H HATES the fabric store and early in our marriage swore off ever going there. Since he agreed to take me (and Daisy) and we were trying to beat the weather I tried to shop quickly.

I've had this type of shopping experience before, so I have an idea of What Not To Do. Sometimes it's hard to recognize when your brain is taking a holiday though. I think the number one thing that would have helped me out (besides applying forethought to Christmas preparations, something I didn't really do this year) was to go to the fabric store with a dollar figure in mind.




** Yes, it's three days until Christmas and I'm not prepared. Most of the gifts are for after Christmas get-togethers.

My mom visited this last week and it curtailed my blogging. Fortunately (for me) she didn't have any comments about my spotty looking carpet.

Mr H received a bonus check the day before she arrived. At his work place they have something like a profit sharing bonus that usually turns out to be a significant amount of money. I'd guesstimate the take-home amount of it this year is equal to one-fourth of Mr H's annual take home pay. "What would you like to do with this money, Mr H?" was the first thing I said when he told me he'd deposited the check. "We'll talk about it after your mother leaves," was his response. We agreed on a date and time, and this conversation sat for a week.

We discussed it the day she left, just hours after she went to the airport. Mr H surprised me: he had a list ready of things he'd like to spend the money on. The Emergency Fund was at the top of the list! It looks like we will complete the Emergency Fund goal by December 31, well ahead of the July 1 date we'd set. I plan to set further Emergency Fund goals though, and Mr H agreed to that. We also tentatively agreed to replacing the sliding glass door, and replacing the carpet in the family room with a hard surface. Mr H can put in the new door and he has some work connections with a flooring company so even with doing both of these projects there should still be some money left. No firm decisions were made, except for the Emergency Fund. For us this conversation went very well.

Later I showed him a Checkbook One budget update. He didn't have much to say, except to note that the money for Grocery/Cleaning/Personal Care category was almost gone. But - we still might squeak by for the month, if we end up spending less on gas. Usually by this point in the month I've transferred $100 - $500 from savings to cover spending in this account. This savings transfer has been going on for years, so to even get this far in to the month without it is a huge development.

My current Goal 1 of getting the EF to $8625 by July 1 and Goal 2 of a Budget for Checkbook One are progressing nicely.

I'm trying to figure out how to clean my carpet without spending any real money on it.

Our house was a rental before we bought it 11 years ago, and had cheap neutral-colored carpet in all rooms except the kitchen/dining area and bathrooms. We pulled up the carpets in all rooms but one and had the hardwood floors which were underneath refinished about 9 years ago. The family room had plywood under its carpet so the carpet was retained.

The family room has a sliding glass door to the backyard on one wall and a door to the garage on the other. There is a dirt trail on the carpet where we walk. There is a tree with berries in the backyard, and every fall the berries fall off and the berry juice comes in on all shoes no matter how carefully we wipe them. So in addition to the dirt trail there are also dark dots all over the carpet.

I've had a carpet cleaner come in a few times and the carpet looks much better when he's done. Trouble is it costs $60 to do this 13' x 10' room. At a minimum we should have it done twice a year. A few years ago I became convinced that we should pull up this carpet and put down a hard surface and a big rug. Both would be easier to clean than this carpet. I have finally convinced Mr. H of the soundness of this plan. Actually, I think rearranging the family room a bit in a way that forced him to spend more time looking at the dirt trail on the carpet is what did it. It's likely that we'll choose a surface that he can install, cutting the labor down. But it's not going to be done any time soon.

Enter my carpet cleaning attempts:
1) Google manual carpet cleaning (or something similar). Get a list of ideas.
2) Read that hydrogen peroxide can take spots out of carpet. Hey, that stuff is cheap and we have it. Grab the bottle and some cotton balls and start dabbing. Hey, it's taking up some of these spots! Great! Later that evening I realize that I'd created clean, light colored polka-dots on my carpet. Hmm. Well it kind of worked.
3) Read that you can scrub your carpet with a scrub brush, water and a tiny bit of soap and then use a shop vac to suck up some of the water and put old towels on the carpet to absorb more water. Hey, I have all these things! Mr H is in charge of the shop vac though. He goes after the worst of the dirt one day when Daisy and I are out using just water (no soap). Later he shows me his efforts, but notes that there are now dirt stripes where the dirt blob used to be.
4) I go after a part of the rug using a small amount of soap in the water this time. It works! I created a 2' x 1' clean patch on the carpet. Mr. H suggests we clean in a checkerboard pattern.
5) Today Daisy and I went after another spot. We scrubbed, vacuumed, rinsed, vacuumed then toweled a spot. Then two more adjoining patches. Daisy danced on the towels to help pull the water up. Another, larger clean spot was created. I just looked at the clean spot - it has dark stripes in between each section. It's kind of hard to tell where you started and stopped so we missed that part.

I'm not sure how this is really working out. The carpet is looking cleaner in spots. . . but it is a lot of work to do even a small patch. Instead of looking dirty it just looks kind of strange now. But I guess we'll just keep going.

I sat down with Mr H on 12/5 and did a budget review for the month of December (so far).

With the budget comprising only Checkbook One, and having just seven categories it's a very limited amount of information. Perfect amount for this type of conversation. (For future reference the categories are Grocery/Cleaning/Personal Care, Gas, Church, Master Card, Bowling and Everything Else.)

I showed him the figures - each category had budget, amount spent and amount remaining. Right away he pointed out that the dollar amount I had started with did not include the Emergency Fund money, but that I had included it on the budget. So we're down to six categories.

He'll be bowling fewer evenings this month because of the holidays. I requested the surplus money go into the "Everything Else" category. Frankly, that category scares me. So far we've spent money on batteries, school pictures for Daisy and a newspaper from that category.

He also noted that the amount we spend on gas should be down with Daisy's school vacation. I won't be driving to school or the extra curricular activities during those days. I haven't paid the master card bill yet, and we've incurred some charges that will be paid from Checkbook Two. He suggested that I just go ahead and pay them now.

We haven't yet gone over budget on any items. It was only the 5th of December, so I should hope not! I plan to take this sheet of paper to him every week.

I guess the frustrating thing for me is that if I didn't bring him the information he wouldn't seek it out. If we are going to stop overspending this account we have very little margin for error, and if we aren't on top of it all the time we will overspend it. But perhaps I'll just be thankful that he engaged at all. That doesn't always happen.

************

The Everything Else category has just $154.55 in it this month. I've projected January and it should have more since we shouldn't have a master card bill next month.

I mentioned what items we've spent this money on this month. Here are some of the items we didn't end up spending this money on:
* Tickets for Daisy's dance performance and the costume fee for that performance. $56. I did some volunteer work for the dance school and didn't expect to be compensated for it, but was given three tickets and had the costume fee waived. Not having to pay for these items was a nice surprise.
* Chicken nuggets at McDonalds. Admittedly this was a completely impulsive thought, but I squelched it. Not sure how much these cost.
* Carpet cleaner. About $20. Our only carpet is about 13' x 10' and old. We are going to try to "clean dangerously" (ie, try carpet cleaning experiments that don't cost anything) before spending the money on cleaner.
* Renewal of annual zoo pass. At $95, this will have to wait.
* Renewal of a magazine subscription. $20. Again, this will have to wait.

Curious to know what effect my navy showers would have on our water bill, I went into heavy-duty analysis mode.

* Got a five gallon bucket and measured the amount of water that runs from our shower head in one minute.
* Timed an average navy shower. Used the measurement to calculate the gallons of water used in an average navy shower.
* Guessed at the amount of time showering with a non-navy shower. Calculated the number of gallons used for that.
* Calculated the number of gallons used for a month of navy showers and a month of non-navy showers. Subtracted the navy shower gallons from the non-navy shower gallons to get the number of gallons saved per month of navy showers.
* Used the 7.481 gallons per cubic feet figure found in the Tightwad Gazette book to convert the gallons into cubic feet.

At this point I got out the most recent water bill, which covers two months, and made this startling discovery:
* Of the $87.51 bill, $57.20 are flat charges. No amount of decreased water usage will change them.
* In 56 days (per the bill), the amount charged for consumption was $30.31. That's 54 cents per day.

Further calculations revealed that taking navy showers, at least in my part of the world, will decrease my water bill by about 0.83 per month, or about $1.66 per bill.

I guess this experiment was not a stunning success. Nevertheless, I'm going to continue with navy showers. They help keep me in the frugal mindset.

I also plan to estimate the dollar savings of turning the heat down during the day while I'm home.

Mr. H caught me about a week ago, and told me he had deposited his paycheck. He deposits set amounts into Checkbook One and Checkbook Two. Generally speaking, he manages Checkbook Two (mortgage, regular bills, medical expenses) and I manage Checkbook One (groceries, gas, clothing, gifts, yard and garden, household expenses, hobbies and other miscellaneous stuff). But we both access each account - I'll pay a doctor out of Checkbook Two, or he'll write a check for bowling out of Checkbook One. "And I put $50 in the Emergency Fund like we talked about."

"Which account did the $50 not go into?" I asked. When the words came out of his mouth I already knew the answer to this one.

"Checkbook Number One," he said. It's kind of like when he takes me out to an expensive restaurant for my birthday, and then later I'm juggling expenses to try to figure out how to pay the credit card bill.

"Mr. H, you're giving me $50 less to work with in an account that's overspent each month," I said.

"Oh. I guess we never talked about it," Mr. H said, some part of the light bulb going on over his head. "Fine! I'll just put it back."

"That's not what I said. I suggested that we work together to figure out where this $50 could come from. When you decided to take the $50 from Checkbook One, you're taking our problem and making it my problem. I'll have to make the hard decisions about what to cut out of our expenses." Unsaid was that, to keep peace in my home, I would probably not cut anything that would have an effect on him. So any uncomfortable effects would be on me.

**************

Later on I showed him my post-it, on which I had written the dollar amounts of money I knew would be spent during December from Checkbook One. I assumed that we would spend about 2/3 of our typical food budget (which I'll admit needs to be cut back), I'd cut my coffee allowance to zero, and nothing would be spent out of that account that wasn't groceries, gas, church contribution, credit card payment or bowling (his hobby), plus the $50. If we can stick to that, which admittedly is fairly unlikely**, we'd have $150 in Checkbook One at the end of December. There is very little margin for error. But I do plan to take this up with him again.


** Christmas expenses have generally come out of Checkbook Two.

I had planned to list some of my curriculum items on Craig's list in January or February. This isn't really the time of year that people are buying this kind of item.

But, someone put a "wanted" posting on a local homeschooling yahoo group for a curriculum item that I had. From my first response to the requestor to when I dropped the item off and had the check in my hand was about 24 hours. I cashed the check about three hours after that. Woo-hoo!

*************

Yesterday I reset the programmable thermostat to 65 during the hours that I was home. It wasn't that bad. I was surprised - I'm really a wimp when it comes to being cold. I also took a navy shower.

But the thing I wonder about these lifestyle changes is - is there anyway to calculate how much money is saved by doing them? I know I can look at the bill when it comes in, but is there anyway to estimate how much these actions save each time I do them?

People, I have a confession to make.

I have a bad, bad habit.

I have an Americano-and-pastry habit. Costwise, I figure it's close to a pack of cigarettes a day. (No, I don't smoke. I just glanced at the price of a pack of cigarettes in a store one day.)

But I'm now at a cross roads.
Do I:
* Keep my bad habit and get a job to support it
OR
* Give up my bad habit (some or all) to support new goals of an emergency fund and a budget that works

I'm going to work at getting rid of my bad habit and replacing it with something else. No, I'm not planning to replace it with another bad habit. (Yes, that was my first thought too.) I'm planning to replace it with another habit that fills the get-out-of-the-house-and-see-people-in-a-friendly-casual-way need.

I've added this as a goal to my sidebar, although technically it's not a goal yet - doesn't have an deadline and is not measurable.

Before I made the last post about Goal 1, DH and I had a discussion about the EF.

It was initiated by him. I think he's getting more concerned about the economy and his job.

Anytime he initiates a conversation about money I'm there. I've worked hard to get to this point. I did not let being under the influence of a head cold (and feeling like I'm under water) get to me.

He reiterated what we'd agreed on for the dollar amount. I agreed that this was a good place to start, but countered that I wanted to reevaluate the dollar amount later. (I think that as a final total it's too low.) He agreed to that.

He wanted to include only the money we have in a certain savings account. (I had initially included money in that account as well as a CD in the sidebar.) I agreed.

He also said that he feels more comfortable if the bill paying account (Checkbook Two) is kept at a minimum of $1500. It's currently below that - with property taxes and work done on both our cars in the past month. He'd done two side jobs in the past month - the checks were coming in soon and he wanted to put some of those dollars in the EF and some in the bill paying account. I agreed.

I told him we needed to set a target date for putting the dollars in the EF. He suggested July 1st. That is 8 months to come up with $4,428.15. It doesn't seem like a terribly ambitious goal but I'll take it. For us it's progress.

The next day he deposited $250 from the side job into the account. Only $4178.15 to go.

Goal 1 on the side bar used to be: Get Mr. H more involved in our financial life. At some point after I finish posting this I'm going to change it.

I've been giving some thought to what I might mean by "getting Mr. H more involved in our financial life". To be a goal it has to be measurable and have a deadline, right? So I started by trying to figure out where we are:

* Mr. H pays the regular bills and handles that account (Checking Account Two), I handle the account that pays for groceries, gas, clothes, gifts, etc (Checking Account One). I also figure out how to pay the credit card bill each month.
* We now both have debit cards for Checking Account One. I requested this. Mr. H gets paid once per month, and I hate writing a check to the credit card company for 1/3 of the money that goes in checking account one right off the top. I'd rather pay as we go. Gas is the main expense put on a credit card. We are likely to have some glitches with this, as we have not had to work together very much with this account.
* We have one tiny joint goal regarding the emergency fund.
* If some unexpected money comes in, we usually discuss it. We don't always come to a conclusion about it but at least we're both aware of it. Mr. H has also started to initiate these conversations.
* If something needs to happen regarding our financial life I usually bring it up, and have to follow up on it. Where Mr. H used to always agree with me during these conversations but not follow up with action, today he's better about bringing up what he wants, and he's better about the follow up.

To Mr. H's credit, he's very good about the regular bills. Where I frequently get bored and restless with too much routine he seems to thrive on it. (It's probably not too much routine for him, LOL.) It also helps that that account has some padding.

Contrast this with where we were about five years ago:
* I paid all bills, reconciled all accounts, made all decisions about investments and saving. Mr. H never asked about it, and pretty much agreed with everything I proposed. I actually became very depressed at one point and didn't reconcile any of our accounts for 18 months - and Mr. H never noticed.

I think what I mean by "getting Mr. H more involved in our financial life" is "get Mr. H to take initiative both in his life and in our life together".

Well. . . hmm. . . I can't change his behavior so that's not a very workable goal.

But maybe something like "encourage Mr. H to work together with me to build up our emergency fund" and "work with Mr. H to get a monthly budget that balances, that we agree on, that we follow and that doesn't cause us huge problems". While neither of these steps address the big picture (What do we want to do with our lives and how does our financial life support that?) they are steps in the right direction. I'll continue to flesh out these goals. I guess it should be noted that I can also work on them (EF and budget) somewhat independently of Mr. H if need be.

I'm still playing with goals. I left what I've had up in my sidebar as goals, although technically they are not goals. They aren't measurable and they don't have a deadline.

Laying in a significant emergency fund seems like a next good goal. Mr. H's job isn't stable, the economy isn't stable, and I'd like the added sense of security of it. So I've added that to the list even though it's technically not a goal either - no deadline.

After I came to this, I waited for a good time and ambushed, er, brought it up to Mr. H. * He agreed that this was a good idea and said that he thought we were already doing it. The money that was spent on his car this past summer was our savings and it's been slowly added to as random money has appeared. But we've never said it was an emergency fund. I think there's a difference in, well, purpose and feeling of intensity between savings and emergency fund. Then I asked him how much he thought we ought to aim for. He named a dollar amount, I agreed, and it's up on the side bar. The conversation, about 10 minutes' worth, was tense. Since we both had to be elsewhere shortly, we agreed to discuss it further the next day. **

When DH asked me about this again, *** I told him I thought our options to fund the EF were: 1) make more money or 2) save more money. Sounds pretty obvious, right?

To make more money either 1) he would need to get a different job AND/OR 2) he would need to get an additional job 3) AND/OR I would need to get a job (part time or back into the workforce). I don't see either 1) or 2) happening, and I would like to be available for my daughter which leaves out 3 (for the most part). So then it becomes saving more of what comes in. And this is where it becomes dicey for me. We can, and should, cut back on food expenses. But beyond that I feel like we're getting into more "extreme savings lifestyle changes". . . and while I recognize there are always choices, and I am choosing family relationships over money, I am just not loving the idea of "extreme savings lifestyle changes" - the things that came to mind are lowering the heat****, hang-drying the laundry, and "navy showers" (you can read about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_shower). I hope they will grow on me, as also the idea of working at paid employment in a temporary and part-time fashion.

This conversation was also tense. I believe that IF we set a goal to have an emergency fund of $XX, and IF we set a deadline, and IF we keep focused on it, THEN the opportunities to achieve this goal will appear. DH has a hard time if the opportunities aren't immediately apparent. Perhaps I just have more faith (well, and more experience achieving goals) than he does. At any rate this is where we frequently get stuck.

* I know I've written many times about not feeling like we have much of a team effort here, financially or otherwise. But, as long as I'm here, I still need to make the effort, right? The difference is that I use different strategies to talk about things than I used to, and I'm less invested in the outcome than I'd like to be. I have to be less invested - a girl can only get her heart broken so many times.

** I suppose that's a guideline for possibly tense conversations - set them up to be short, so you can say your piece and go to your separate corners . . . you're not required to keep fighting about them.

***Yes, he does get credit on the teamwork balance sheet for bringing it up.

**** But I am sitting here with the thermostat set at 66, and doing okay so maybe I can get used to it.

** Warning: slightly dramatic and whiny post ahead. Read at your own risk. I don't plan to make a habit of this because in the long run I don't think it will help solve problems. But it helps me clarify some of my own thoughts, and it's a springboard for moving forward into 2009. **

I have recently read It's All Too Much and Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh. He's the host of an organizing show on TLC that I've never watched. We don't get that station. But both books were good. He really tries to get you to get to the heart of the matter. With clutter it's not about how to rearrange your house, it's about the life you live now versus the life you've lived in the past or the life you want to live in the future. I think anyone who's ever bought an exercise machine that became a clothing rack can relate to this. With being overweight, it's about what kind of life you want to live - not necessarily tied to a number on the scale, but what you want to do with your life and how having a healthy body can help you achieve that.

After reading these two books, I realized that the clutter problem in our house, my weight problem and our financial issues are all related. For me, they are all the same issue - trying to fill a hole that cannot be filled. The real problem is not about stuff, food or money - it's about relationships, and one in particular. While this is not a completely new revelation, rearranging these piece of my life and looking at it this way is.

The primary relationship problem is not solvable, at least not directly. Truly solving relationship problems takes willingness and cooperation from the people involved. If only one person is willing then the problems become something to be managed, but not solved. Yes, I know this sounds completely discouraging. . . and if I'd only think positively. . . and be a good sport. . . then the other person would respond positively and everything would be perfect, right? That hasn't been my experience though. Has anyone ever worked on a team where one person just wasn't a team player? Different strategies are tried but the person's behavior doesn't change. Sometimes the person is transferred to a different department, sometimes they're moved to a different position requiring less teamwork, sometimes they're let go. Usually though, short of dramatic experiences (such as being knocked off your horse by a bolt of lightening and blinded for three days) the person's behavior does not noticeably change.

Right now many bloggers here are thinking about their 2009 goals. I personally am having a hard time with this, or any other goals, but am working hard to overcome self pity and set some goals anyway. Mr. H doesn't believe in setting goals or having dreams about life. . . and after many years of this I've decided that it is not in my best interest to live this way anymore. No, I'm not leaving Mr. H, but am trying to figure out how to have goals and dreams that 1) Don't require Mr. H's active participation or involvement 2) Don't require me to carry Mr. H through them and 3) are not obviously divisive to our marriage. Early in our marriage and for several years I sat down with Mr. H to discuss the upcoming year - what did we plan to do, what goals we had, etc. Eventually I realized that I was setting most of the goals and doing most of the work to carry them out. So I stopped doing this completely, and Mr. H never said a word. Each year now I ask him how many camping trips he wants to go on (which I then set up), and that's about it. Sometimes we talk about house projects.

CouponAddict's recent post linked to Money Saving Mom's blog, in which she (Crystal) describes their (ambitious) financial goals for 2008. They achieved them too, and I have no doubt they will achieve their very ambitious goal for 2009. I admire Crystal and her husband very much - they truly work as a team and their hard work has been rewarded. I'm inspired by them. . . but I also have a hard time reading her blog. I'm envious of her (not the best reflection of my own character, I'm afraid) and recognize that, no matter how many different ways I've tried, I can't bring that sense of working hard together for the common good into my own life.

Finally coming up for air. I think we're adjusted to Daisy's adventure to "away school" now. She is doing well there. Fall's always a little busy around here - the start of the school year (and its activities) is followed by Daisy's birthday, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's - and all their associated activities.

After reporting on a discussion between myself and Mr. H, and reading the comments I got, I did a lot of thinking and observing of teamwork, helping and "usness". It's been eye-opening, and will probably get a few blog posts later.

But tonight, since it's almost my bedtime, I'll report on something I did this month that I've never done before: I sold an item on Craig's list. I was kind of intimidated by the whole process, and I've been procrastinating about it. With Daisy in school though I have time and energy to pursue these kinds of projects. I have a pile of curriculum items, and decided to check the Wanteds one day. I couldn't believe it when someone was looking for an art curriculum I had. That sale went well and brought in $120.

I haven't participated in the $20 Challenge up to this point, but I think I'll add any Craig's list items to the $20 Challenge.

I like to make Stir-Fried Green beans every year at about this time if I have access to garden-grown green beans. The recipe is in the More With Less Cookbook, and it's a tasty way to use a pound of green beans for a dinner. You can use the large-but-not-yet-woody/rubbery green beans for this dish and it comes out well. Green bean gardeners, you know what I'm talking about. Those beans seem to come around later in the season after you've already eaten your weight in small tender beans. You don't really want to throw them away, but they just aren't as good (in my opinion anyway) as the smaller beans.

We visited our farm friends this past weekend, and they gave us about 7 pounds of green beans. I froze five pounds, used one pound for Stir-Fried Green Beans and still have a pound in the fridge.

One slight. . . issue with this dish is that the green beans must be julienned. (Julienned? Is that a word?) That means cut in long skinny pieces. My mom has a gadget that will do this. I don't have that gadget and it takes 30-45 minutes for me to cut them by hand.

The recipe calls for 1/4 pound of beef chuck (steak, I'd guess). I used 1/2 pound of a steak that was given to my husband's work at Christmas time (it's been frozen since then - not in the fridge!). I served this with brown rice for an inexpensive and good-tasting meal.