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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Sinus Headaches and Giving it Away for Free
Whatever pressure system is going through my area is giving me a sinus headache. One of those headaches where you kind of wish your head would explode because it would be such a relief.
I’ve been writing and talking to people in the blogosphere to get more information on financial writing. It always makes me feel so backward and weird when I hear others talking about having problems with the marketing but they have no problem finding the outlets.
I’m like a big gun waiting to fire but I don’t have a target.
So, when that happens, I just start marketing and figure the outlets will come later.
This time I’m starting in a place where I don’t know anyone already. Okay, Fussypants is an acquaintence…of sorts…on Twitter, but I don’t know her like I know, say, eMom. Which isn’t much better, but I’ve at least met Wendy in person, so that counts for a step up on the social ladder.
But I do know that Fussy is smart, and she went through some drama a while back and I thought she handled it very well, so I have respect for her in that, “Ooh, I saw your drama get aired in public” kind of way.
So I’ve been wanting to write more about finances without turning this blog into finance central all the time, plus I kind dig Fussy…One plus one equals two, right?
I’m the newest contributor for Financial Bliss (over at Blissfully Domestic) which, I hear, got changed last night to Frugal Bliss. If I had a vote (I totally didn’t) I would have named the section Blissful Wealth. But, you know, that’s just me.
I even get a cute little badge to show off my membership and contribution to the new clique.
Now that I put it in the post, it’s not really a little badge, huh? Oh well, it will look good hanging out in the sidebar with all my other “Flair” – are there 22 pieces yet? Do you all remember Office Space well enough that the flair joke is even funny?
Ok, I’m going to crawl back into my sinus headache. You can click here to read the first post I wrote for Financial Bliss (now Frugal Bliss should be Blissful Wealth or at least Wealthy Bliss but, again, I’m a brand new contributor and have no right to do anything but provide good content and snuggle my graphic.)
Hope you enjoy the site. As far as group sites like that go, it’s one of the nicest I’ve seen. Great branding too, which makes me feel good about writing for free and putting it in my portfolio so people can see the body of financial writing I’m attempting to create.
The first post that is going up is on current events, but we’ll be talking a lot about investing with small amounts of money to start building a portfolio even if you aren’t moneybags. Because, yeah, the stock market is not just for the rich or stupid. It’s for anyone that is looking for the path that leads to true wealth. That little place at the end of The Game of Life (by Parker Brothers, right?) where you want to get your little pink care with the little pegs.
The Kids are Back in the Bedroom – Finally!
After weeks of drop cloths and rollers my kids are finally back in their room.
They have a lovely bright-white room with the ceiling trim painted a lovely pastel pink, and the bottom baseboards and thick trim around the closet painted a lovely pastel minty green.
It kinda looks like something out of a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and it makes me want to cry when I see it, because it’s so much better than the off-white it was before, complete with crayon, pen, lipstick, marker, and glue that was all over the walls. It looks like something out of a catalog.
Back when we were poor (I do not use that term lightly) one of Randy’s “before he was awesometastic” jobs was working with his cousin. His cousin had a commercial/residential painting company. Randy’s cousin is like the painting mafia. Perfection was necessary and Randy did his best to live up to his cousin’s expectations. He actually did a pretty good job – the only reason he left was that he got a management position at a local coffee house that had a ten second commute.
What this means is that when I need a room painted, I have a painter here on staff to take care of it. It’s a blissful feeling knowing he’s patching and edging and knows the difference between flat, eggshell, and semi-gloss paints.
Even better? Paint is expensive. Randy’s cousin ends up with leftover paint from all these different jobs he does and it’s a pain in the butt for him to dispose of it all properly. (There are laws, who knew!) So when we want to paint, Randy drives over to his house and says, “Hey cuz, what paint are you getting rid of?”
We currently have about twelve buckets of paint in everything from pastel pink, yellow, and green all the way to bright red and gray.
He is currently in the middle of painting our bedroom.
Sidenote: We thought the walls were white when we saw the house five and a half years ago. We really did. I couldn’t figure out why the house always felt, well, a little dingy no matter what we did. Once randy hit the girls’ room with the first coat of white, it was like a light went on! Our walls were all horribly off-white! So, even though I swore when I owned a home I wouldn’t paint all the walls white (white walls always felt like “apartment living” to me) it seems I’m sucked in.
Besides, I know how I want to decorate the rooms. You saw my scrapbook photo frame, right? I’m going to do more of those plus do some sayings so I don’t have to put vinyl stickers on the walls. I’m really excited about it.
Back to my bedroom. We’re doing white again, but our trim is going to be the lovely, subtle ice blue for both the top trim and the baseboards. Oh, and the baseboards were painted when we moved in, so we’re not the morons painting over wood. When I get my hardwood floors I’ve been dreaming of we are going to redo the baseboards at the same time so they are wood.
Pictures will be provided as soon as I have the dresser and bookcase painted for their room as well. I’m going to do a cool distressed effect where we paint them the light green, then a coat of white, and then use a fine piece of sandpaper to “distress” the white and let some of the green show through.
Finance Friday: Getting It Together For October
You know I’ve been trying to follow most of the Dave Ramsey Plan right?
Dave Ramsey Plan Review & Summary
- $1000 emergency fund
- Pay off debt
- 3-6 months of expenses REAL emergency fund
- Invest in retirement
- Save for kids to go to college (or start a business)
- Pay off mortgage ASAP
- Invest like a madwoman (I’m paraphrasing that one)
The problem is, I did the written budget, realized we actually had money, and went kind of batsh*t there for a minute – or a month.
From lunches with friends to beer making equipment to taking the kids downtown for the day, my debit card was used, bruised, and abused so much in September I heard it on the phone the other day pitching a Lifetime movie.
With all that, my emergency fund will be shy of the first $1000 goal.
Now for the good news. It’s only going to be short by about $300. Every time Randy gets a paycheck (twice a month, not bi-weekly) $100 goes right into ING Direct Savings. That means we only have to contribute an extra $100 to the savings account sometime during October to make that step one from up there in the list complete.
The big problem
I have a personality that drives to do everything, all at once. I figure out what the steps are, I map out a path, and then I attempt to run like the wind down the path as fast as I can go.
That means I keep trying to pay off too much, too soon, and I get discouraged really easily. Because numbers make me feel downright dumb. Really. Working with a budget and the bills and addition and subtraction makes me feel so very, very stupid.
Feeling stupid can lead to some reckless behavior.
The quick fix
Since I can’t revamp my personality quickly, I’m revamping the plan. I’m trying to make the budget more conservative by giving my categories for the following some extra cash (a.k.a. more breathing room.)
- Randy Entertainment
- Jen Entertainment
- Groceries
- Eating Out
I know, I know. If you are a Dave Ramsey viewer you hear the mantra, “Rice and beans, beans and rice.” You can keep your beans and rice. I believe that eating out once a week is less than most people and perfectly logical to have in the budget. Randy has a full time job and multiple freelance clients. I have two toddlers and blog and freelance and do a multitide of other things to bring cash into the house.
We both need cheap reminders that we are working like dogs for a reason. The future? That’s never enough to get you through tomorrow.
I also think building that little extra into the budget will keep us from having another spendfest like we did in September.
Other habit changes
We stopped drinking Starbucks coffee. We found that the Folgers Dark Silk Roast tastes basically almost like the Sumatra that I was so used to. It’s strong enough that it wakes me up in the morning, but is a little less acidic than the Starbucks. So it’s really better overall. No more acid tummy. Plus Folgers is cheap!
Randy and I made a deal. I’m the one that always wants to eat out (because if it’s cooked by me I don’t eat and then we have that whole almost-an-eating-disorder issue – I like meals now and then.) For any money left over at the end of the month from the “eating out” budget – basically if I don’t spend all the money in that envelope – I get to put it in the ShareBuilder Mutual Fund to either be left in the mutual fund or used to purchase stock.I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this development.
The only thing more important to me than good food brought straight to my table is money brought straight into my bank account.
How to Start and End Your Day Happily in the Negative
Here’s the weird thing about a ShareBuilder account with ING.
When you buy the stocks, you buy them at the price they are when you buy them. Common sense, right? But the prices of stocks fluctuate overnight. When I bought my Lehman Bros last night it was at $.13 and Fannie Mae was at $1.78. So my bank account was charged a grand total of $277 because of what the pricing was when I placed the order.
When the actual Buy Order went through this morning it went like this:
Lehman Bros – $.25 x 100 Shares + 14.95 comission = $39.95
Fannie Mae – $2.01 x 100 Shares + 14.95 comission = $215.95
For a total of $255.90
But since I’d only agreed to pay a total of $227 for both of the stocks, I started the day with a negative account balance. The difference between the opening prices and the prices when I made the order. A difference of $28.90.
So when I first logged in this morning and saw that my account was -$9.90 I felt pretty good about it. I’d already made back much of my loss.
There was a way around it
I could have found a way to trade on another market to buy the stocks. Australia is getting up while we are going to bed. It is possible I could have purchased the stocks through the Australian stock market (I don’t know if one even exists, just so you know, this is only for the sake of example.) That would have assured my purchases would have happened at the prices I wanted to the penny.
I haven’t started researching overseas trade, but I imagine it costs a little more to execute than the $9.95 it costs with ShareBuilder from ING. Even if I wanted to do a phone trade with ING it would cost $29.95! I’m happy sticking with the Internet.
Where I ended up when the market closed
When all was said and done at the close of the market (4:30pm CST) I was down in my ShareBuilder account by $29.90. While you could look at that and say, “Wow. Don’t you feel all freaked out being in the negative on an account?” I don’t.
Because I started out at negative $28.90 and ended at negative $29.90. I lost a dollar today.
Considering the bailout plan got shaky during the last hour of trading I’m surprised I’m not down a whole lot more. When Twitter reports were coming through that they had made a bailout deal before McCain could even get himself to Washington, DC everything spiked (as expected) and at my highest point today there was a whole $49.60 in the account. Not negative, either. A positive balance of almost fifty dollars. (Had I cashed out it would have meant I made $78.50 – the combo of covering the negative I started the day with plus the profit at the peak of the day.)
I don’t generally think in terms of how much I made when I wasn’t even planning on selling, I just want to make sure I’m being clear how I can be happy ending my day in the negative.
That and you and I both know I didn’t buy these stocks to sell them today. I bought them this morning JUST IN CASE the bailout somehow went through today. Lehman closed at .33 cents today when I bought it at .25. Fannie Mae closed at 1.97 when I bought it at $2.01. The slight differences between opening and closing prices (basically my stocks for all intents and purposes are almost exactly where they were when the market opened) when the overall Dow Jones closed UP 196 points tells me the market and everyone in it are probably going to stay about the same until something happens.
Like, oh…I don’t know….a bailout perhaps?
How I want to play this
That means my job is to wait. Wait for news that will make a difference in how these stocks act. Something that will make people feel one way or the other about them.
For now they are just kind of sitting. Flucutating a little based on the day’s news and any whisper coming out of those bailout meetings. But that won’t make the big difference.
I don’t really expect to even consider getting rid of these stocks until Monday.
Until then I plan on watching the Fox Business Channel. The mix of Dave Ramsey on one end of the spectrum and Jim Cramer on the other helps me stay focused on where I want to be.
Stuck in the middle with you. Of course.
Falling off the Financial Wagon to Invest
I need to do the October budget today. Mostly because I think it will look a lot better than last month’s budget…but also because I spent about $200 out of the emergency fund.
Really, it was sort of an impulse buy. Well, I’ve been talking about it for months, so not entirely impulsive. My desire has only grown as constant talk about the woeful state of the economy has had a chance to really sink in.
Did you know that Bill Clinton’s Press Secretary bought 2,000 shares of Lehman Brothers about two weeks ago? That’s before there were whispers of a 700 billion bail-out package.
Now that the bail-out package is almost a done deal (I mean, who can say no with executive payment caps and judicial oversight?) I’m wondering if Lehman’s stock is going to see a jump if not a serious resurgence.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it should. Lehman has already been (basically) broken up and what’s going to be left of Lehman is the bad parts. It’s not like the bail out package is actually going to Lehman…but just because you know that and I know that doesn’t mean every daytrader and investor knows that.
You know how much my 100-share gamble is going to cost me? You can take a guess…I’ll wait… (when you’re calculating your guess, make sure to take into account the $19.95 fee for making the trade – and don’t tell me e*trade is cheaper, I know it is.)
$38
That’s right. For the same price I would pay for a large pizza and a 2-liter of coke I bought a completely speculative stock. I’m hungry, but very excited. I also need to find a cheaper pizza place.
Sure, I’ll have to keep an eye on it, but you know as well as I do that I don’t wander very far from a computer at any given time. So I’ll be up close and personal with my new baby – the reviled, the detested, the one and only…Lehman Brothers.
I cannot wait to see how this plays out.
In order for me to make a profit on the stock it needs to go to about sixty cents a share.
Where the rest of the money went
Since only $38 of the $200 I spent went to Lehman, I should let you know where the rest went. It too went to buy 100 shares of another company stock.
Are you ready to laugh? Good…
Fannie Mae
I figure there are only three potential outcomes for this stock
- Somehow I lose all my shares. The government makes it private, it goes bankrupt, it explodes taking all files with it…whatever. Somehow I could lose all my money. It is a stock, after all.
- It shoots up after Obama and McCain get together with Bush today and they all hold hands and sing campfire songs about how great the bail-out package is with the new tweaks. If it shoots up too high (like, more than it should for a normal comeback) we sell the crap out of it.
- The company stays open, stays public, does not make a huge resurgence and eventually balances out to what the stock price should be. I keep it in my brand-spanking-new portfolio till I retire.
The way I see it, two-thirds odds for what most people will spend on Halloween (I already have costumes for the girls. They are going to wear those scrubs ’till they don’t fit anymore. I love Princess Linens) is not that big of a risk for the potential return.
I really think by Monday the markets will start to rally. It all depends, though, on when that bail-out goes through. If they wait until Sunday like they have for everything else the past few weeks then maybe it won’t rally on Monday but on Tuesday. It’s difficult to tell.
But there will be a rally, because once everyone gets over being angry about the government bail-out they will realize they aren’t so afraid of another depression happening and the pain and anger will fade quickly. People just want to live and not worry, the government giving them something to do that will be a cooling salve on the burn of giving people money that may not deserve it.
Why I didn’t just put my money in a mutual fund
A good mutual fund has a diversified portfolio. Even a tech mutual fund will have diversified tech stocks in it. As long as my stock portfolio is diversified, it is basically the same as a mutual fund, but without the fees. Oh, and with a manager at the helm that really cares about the companies and the money that is being traded or left to sit. That manager would be me.
See, mutual fund managers are paid a salary. They don’t make money for having a mutual fund that does really well, and people who invest in mutual funds are pretty risk-averse (or they would buy stocks.) That means the goal of a mutual fund is not to make as much as possible while balancing risk. Their job is to make sure that mutual fund beats 6% and that’s about it.
Mutual funds are glorified, slightly risky savings accounts. There is no wealth-building in a mutual fund.
But that is only my opinion. You will notice I have a brand new disclaimer at the bottom of this website since I’ve started talking more about finances and am now getting into stocks (so it seems.) Please be aware that I am not a financial advisor, and as such am not giving you advice. Just sharing what I’m doing with my life and why. That’s it.
These speculative stocks aren’t part of the mutual fund I’m talking about, though
Fannie Mae and Lehman are completely speculative stock picks. Buying Fannie Mae was referred to today on Mad Money with Jim Cramer as a “Sucker’s Play” – so…the experts aren’t with me on this one. Dave Ramsey always harps on aggressive growth and growth mutual funds so you know he isn’t on board with my idea either.
But…if there are two things I know about the economy and the stock market it’s this:
- Buy low, sell high
- When the economy is in the toilet, everything is on sale
So I bought some stuff on sale. It might turn out to be bad quality and fall apart, but you know what, that happens sometimes.
I’ll keep you updated.
The First Time…
I am not the gushing, crazy-in-love parent you see on television and in the movies.
When I had my first daughter, I mean really HAD her – naked, wrapped in a blanket and still, you know, still attached to me, my thought was, “Eh…that wasn’t as hard as I thought.”
We brought her home and she sucked on her pacifier, I failed at breastfeeding, and I thought, “What is the big fuss about motherhood?”
She cried, I tried to work, and I’d look at her and wonder why she needed to cry when she was changed, fed, and had just been rocked for an hour. Not in that, “ZOMG what is WRONG where is the DOCTOR’S NUMBER” way, just in a quizzical, confused, “I thought we bought milk yesterday” way.
I wondered a lot if other mothers lied about feeling attached to their children from the moment they saw those little faces, those little eyes, those little toes. I wondered if I would ever love my daughter, or if I was incapable of loving something that I did not choose to love, like my husband.
Over time, I got to know her habits a little better. She focused at something way off in space, and I’d stare at her little toes, her little feet, her little belly button and think, “Wow, the OB did a pretty good job making sure she’s an innie.”
When she was about three months, I walked into the living room where she was hanging out on her Boppy chewing on her fist and staring at who-knows-what…and she saw me. I mean she saw me.
It was like I was looking at her for the first time. Those eyes were mine. Those ears were Randy’s. That baby was mine. And she knew who I was. She gave me this huge, toothless smile…
…and I felt it like a lightning bolt through the center of my heart.
The first time I fell in love with my daughter sadie was when she was three-and-a half-months old.
This entry is written for the Blogging Motherhood book contest at It’s My Life…Wanna Come Play?
September Budget Reflections
So we budgeted for September.
Nice excel spreadsheet, put in all the income, all the expenses…and you know what?
It doesn’t balance.
According to my spreadsheet I should have more money than I have in the bank accounts. Like, a hundred dollars more.
- I have been through every receipt
- I have been through the online bank records
- I have double checked, cross checked, and had someone else read the numbers to make sure it wasn’t my reading skills getting fuzzy
- I checked all the formulas in the excel spreadsheet to make sure they weren’t off
That hundred dollars is nowhere.
Of course, we’re going to be smarties and go with the lower of the two numbers…but it’s difficult to know that somewhere I made a mistake. Worse, I can’t find the mistake.
I’m going to put it down to first-time jitters and hope that next month goes more smoothly. I can’t go losing money all over the place. Plus, there will be far fewer receipts next month…October we are going back to our ways of frugalness. We didn’t buy Botox and diamonds this month, but we did take the kids to Navy Pier and I did spend a lot on Randy’s birthday gift.
How we’ll make it better next month
For October, all I need to complete the girls’ Halloween costumes is pairs of fake clogs from Walmart. They are going to be doctors this year – wearing those scrubs from Princess Linens they always get comments on. They won’t fit next year so I figure milk the adorableness while it’s still possible, right? So $5 for fake clogs and we are done for Halloween. We don’t need candy, because we’ll be out trick-or-treating, not staying home to pass out candy.
October should be a very low-expense month for us.
So, about that emergency fund…
Due to the budget difference I am still $100 shy of my $1000 emergency fund for Dave Ramsey baby step one. But…we’re cheating on the plan and not stopping the automatic savings draft from my checking account, so we’ll be up to $1000 after the first $100 withdrawl comes out on the 1st of October.
Even though it is not high-yield, we put half of the emergency fund into the Bank of America savings account (not high yield is right…only a .2% interest rate…shameful!) Because if a true emergency happens, I can’t wait 2-3 business days to access the money from ING Direct.
Feeling good – Paying bills
Oh! Bank of America finally released my funds from my writing work! So I was able to pay bills yesterday! It felt so good to just use the online banking and put in all the amounts and hit that “Schedule Payments” button.
Solving the check-holding problem
Next month I’ll cash that check at the Currency Exchange and deposit the cash into the BoA account. It will cost about $24 to cash the check, but having BoA hold the check for five business days rocked my world with over $100 in late payment fees (one of those payments was the mortgage with a $42 late fee! Gak!) So it really does make sense to spend the $24 up front until the savings account is more than a month’s worth of expenses.
photo credit: superstrikertwo
A Typical Morning
was inspired to write this post by Sam of Temporarily Me. She has this beautiful story about how her kids wake her up in the morning. You just know it’s going to have a happy, fulfilled ending.
So I thought I’d try my hand at what morning looks like…
While it is still dark, I crack open one eye and realize that our 2yo Abby has crawled into my bed and is touching her nose to mine. The feeling of something on my nose used to freak me out, but over time I have gotten used to it.
Abby will see me seeing her and then snuggle on my pillow back under the sheet and sleep for a little while longer.
Sadie knows that if she wakes up and Daddy isn’t awake yet, he’s probably running late for work, so she will walk to the side of the bed and say, “Daddy…daddy…daddy…” however many times it takes until he comes to the surface of whatever dream he’s trapped in and yell at her to stop saying his name. She smiles, knowing her work has been done and comes over to my side of the bed to say, “Good Morning.”
I usually mumble something completely incoherent back at her but always make sure to smile, because when I smile she knows everything is okay. She smiles back and by this time Daddy is out of bed so she goes to find him to tell him, “I’m hungry. I want lunch.” (because every meal in this house is lunch.)
Depending on the schedule, he may or may not have time to get them something to eat. He may or may not remember to turn on Sid the Science Kid or some other toddler-appropirate-so-good-you-don’t-need-to-feel-guilty cartoon and he may or may not kiss me goodbye.
If he doesn’t feed them or turn on the TV, they are on my bed jumping and wrestling with each other until I wake up, which is fairly quick considering when a baby falls from the wrestling match, they fall into my back or stomach depending on which way I’m turned on the bed.
Coffee is wiating for me in the kitchen, because Randy makes his before leaving for work and makes enough that it will keep until I’m up. We have one of those awesome carafe coffeepots so it stays hot and doesn’t get the burned taste from staying on the heater too long. I grab the carafe, a coffee cup, and an english muffin and go to my office to check email and get any last-minute work started that has a tight deadline.
While I do that the kids eat, or watch cartoons, or play with their puzzles or do any number of a million things. Occasionally they will come in (about once every two minutes) and ask, “Is your first cup of coffee done, Mommy?” (Because I have trained the kids that the first cup of coffee is sacred.) When it is done I tell them yes, and then the playing and talking and little-girlishness of my toddlers has an extra room to play in.
My office.
By the time all this happens, it’s about 8:30am.
