Can’t wait to move! I’m already planning to build a compost bin in the yard. Something with nice slats all the way around in a box shape, to compost and turn over. We can get all the scrap lumber imaginable from work, so it won’t cost anything. Possibly 2 bins, so I can rotate it and allow some of it to decompose nicely for gardening this summer. We’ve checked the online seed catalogs, and have already planned some of our purchases. We’ll be focusing mainly on heirloom seed varieties. I’m looking forward to a real honest herb garden. Seattle is absolutely perfect for rosemary, and chives usually winter over well. Sage can also get very large, but I don’t use that very often. 

I’m planning on leeks, onions, salad galore, fava beans in the fall, nasturtium flowers (they make the greatest addition to salads), and J wants to do everything else under the sun: tomatoes, cukes, green beans, carrots, lots and lots of potatoes, garlic, melon, pumpkin, squash. I’ve been devouring a bunch of canning blogs and seeing all the luscious stuff that you can can and make, sweet and savory both! J already has a ton of canning supplies and recently bought a pressure canner for the low-acid foods.

There’s a full-size fridge at the new place (our current one is 3/4 size and we definitely notice!). However, J may want to get an extra freezer for all the stuff he wants to make. Right now, we’re limited, so there’s a lot of times we don’t cook as much as we otherwise would. I’ve been wanting to make pasta for ages, ravioli particularly. Mmmm, my mouth waters thinking about butternut squash, sage, shiitake filling, with a brown butter sauce. I also haven’t made homemade pizza in ages.

So again, can’t wait to stop throwing out all our food scraps and can’t wait to start making food from our garden! Having it directly in the backyard rather than a 5 minute drive away (as in our p-patch neighborhood shared garden space), will make me use the salads much more often. I mean, just walk outside to grab what you need?! Fantastic!

From my $450 car repair total (2 tows, a triple AAA membership and a $250 mechanic bill) $200 will come from my car fund – I had completely forgotten I had anything left in it!, and $100 will come from this month’s budget, so I will only have to deplete my emergency fund by $150!!! Not as bad as I had feared.

I can return my purchased (and unused) alternator at Napa and refund my credit card by $200.

I saved a tank of gas by not driving this past week, carpooling with J in his car (we have slightly divergent schedules, so we often don’t carpool), and using J’s car to do errands or just not go anywhere. I saved about $30-$35.

Found out that my landlord has paid the electric, water, sewage bills through the end of the year, so I don’t have to pay for December. Though once I do live in my house, these bills are paid quartly, so I may get burned when I move out (unless they prorate them with a refund at the end?).

I have to go get boxes for moving at the supermarket. I alsorealized that I can utilize a TON of used cube boxes from work, so I can pretty much start packing this weekend.

We had an unexpected transport to do last night at work, so I got a nice 4 hour overtime addition at the last minute, to my timecard. Whoo hoo! This was going to be an otherwise lean paycheck.

I also got a major deal on a rental truck from a vendor we work with. A flat $25, no mileage, for a truck  for Weds night through Sunday. Can’t beat that!!! And I can get all the padded blankets, foam, boxes, straps and ratchets that I could possibly use from work.

Things aren’t looking as bad as I had thought financially. I will spend a little from my EF, but still make my debt payments this month. I don’t want to fall behind, I’ll just have to build up my EF again. There are $750 of extra deposits that I’m going to have to supply, and I may just use part of my EF for that and pay extra in savings each month until I can get it back to $1000.

Well, 7 days, $450 dollars, and 1 dead bug later, my truck is back in fighting trim! I recently chronicled the process of it dying on the road, having to get it towed ($100) home, and J’s multi-day process of trying to figure out the problem. Alternator? Not sure. Battery? Not sure. Post fully-charged battery? Not the battery. Alternator? Stll not sure.

1 AAA membership ($56), a pre-existing problem car tow later ($20) and 3 extra miles later ($12), I left it with a reputable mechanic near work. Luckily the tow-driver was kind enough to take me ($0) to work 3 miles away after dropping it off. The expected alternator/battery diagnostic was not sufficient (both were working properly, $75). Additional diagnostics into the electrical harness (ie, all the wiring under the hood) ended up with 1 dead wasp and an additional $175 charge.

The wasp made it through my air filter, through a barrier-protected area, through a tube and into a small bb-sized hole that ended up shorting out 2 wires on either side of his little wasp body. Those wires were part of the sensor that watches the air in and fuel into the engine. I did get some little odds and ends repaired, and found a new nut for the big bolt on the bottom of my alternator (it would eventually have failed because of it, so I saved myself a tow and more diagnostics in the future).

So, total bill? $450!!!

Oh, and did I mention that my yearly allotted budget for my car is $1200? Want to know what I’ve spent so far this year prior to now? $800. That brings me to $1250. Pretty spot on for the year. Provided nothing else happens this year! Knock on chrome.

It’s 6 days and my truck is still broke and sitting at home. We’ve talked to some local mechanics and found out that part of the problem may be that the battery is completely depleted. So today I drove it over (in J’s car, since we work together and can carpool) to get trickle-charged at the mechanic by where I work.

Tonight we will try one last time to see if we can get it working. If it starts up and remains running (it’s been dying if allowed to idle), then I’ll drive it to the mechanic in the morning. 9.5 miles away. Even with a (potentially) broken alternator, it should have enough charge to go that distance during the day with no heat, lights, or windshield wipers going. Pray for no rain tomorrow!!!

The mechanic will then run some tests and find out what the problem is – is the alternator charging the battery? Is it the battery (which I have now found out, is at the end of its life and needs to be replaced)? Is it the plus that goes into the alternator that has a wire broken and sticking out attached to nothing? Was it the belt being too loose? Was it the nut that was about to fall off the alternator bolt not putting tension on the belt?

So far I’m out a $100 tow, a potential charge by the mechanic tomorrow (they will do diagnostics and we’ll decide what to do from there), and a $200 rebuilt alternator (currently replaceable if I need to bring it back to Napa, or with a $50 rebate if I replace it and return the core).

Hmm… stay tuned to this debt channel!

So I’m moving soon, and have to pay extra deposits and such. I also made the mistake of looking at my past year’s expenses on my truck and thinking, I did good this year and I can decrease my car (truck) fund next year. I think Murphy heard me.

After driving home from looking at the new house we’re going to rent, everything died on my car and it just stopped working. Just prior the dash lights were fading, the windshield wipers were slow as molasses. The window was moving up and down like snails. Hardly any heater air was coming out, even on 3 (it was raining really hard, and the windshield was fogged up). We were halfway home. We think it’s the alternator. So now I have a broken truck out in the parking lot, I’m out $100 for the tow, and $150 on a rebuilt alternator (I had to pay $50 extra until the core gets returned afterwards). J offered to fix it, so I’m stuck until he does. If he can’t, or if the rain keeps up and he doesn’t feel like standing in a cold downpour to fix it, I will have to pay yet again, a second tow and a mechanic to fix it. And of course, there are complications – the bolt was loose, the belt was looser than it should be, and a plug that goes into the alternator has a wire sticking out, broken. Is it one of these things or something completely different? Time will tell, though I really really want a working vehicle back (it’s been broke since Thurs evening).

Ugh. My car fund is empty, so even more will be coming out of my EF savings. I just can’t win this month! And I know there will be extra expenses with moving, like renting a truck, maybe getting a wireless router for internet, various deposits for utilities and such (I’m sure).

Argh, just when I’m getting back in control, when all my finances are being beat into submission, I up and decide to move! I’ll be moving into a new house Thanksgiving weekend, and having all those extra deposits to pay. That’ll mean putting off some debt payments and/or dipping into my EF savings for a little while.

My current living situation is a bit unique. I live (illegally) in an artist studio. More than half of everyone else in the building does too, and it’s not a big deal, but there are some related items that make it a challenge. The space is largely unheated (the heat is in one room, since a prior tenant built a wall around it to make a bedroom space, which resulted in 75% of the area being unheated (and it was in the upper 40s most of last winter). There are no laundry facilities, and I have to drive 15 minutes to get to a coin laundry (the washer/dryer got removed the week after I moved in). But the biggest detractor is the amount of homeless people that walk by the studio in front of our windows, every day. With the economic changes, the number of people that walk by has increased immeasurably. There is a big encampment up above that they all live in, in a large greenbelt to the side of the big interstate, which they access by walking by and then up a path just down the train tracks from the studio. There are a lot of men, and lately, a lot more younger men, latinos, white, you name it. It’s getting so that we’re worried to have the windows open. A girl in the building next door just told us that someone tried to break into her space, and one of the homeless people killed another within 1/4 mile of us. So we want out. I look at craigslist every so ofte, and when I did so last Wednesday evening, one place looked promising. J looked at it Thurs morning and it was great! Well, good enough anyway. We just got approved yesterday and I gave my current landlord notice.

The house we’ll be renting is the same price. It just has a lot less space. And it’s missing the 14′ ceilings. and the cool art neighbors. And the big open wide space for the cats to run around in. But it actually has a yard, a really really huge one, and we can have a ginormous garden (4′x75′) plus there is a basement for all of J’s stuff (which are quite volumous, he’s a bit of a packrat), a washer dryer, a larger kitchen, heat, and a really nice neighborhood in an area that I’ve been desperate to move back into.

So now I have to pony up:
First and Last month rent ($1800)
$250 damage deposit
$250 cleaning deposit ($175 is non-refundable for carpet cleaning, and it’s an ugly hunter-green carpet)
$250 pet deposit

My current place I had no deposit (after all, the walls are not structural and they don’t care what kind of build-out or demolition you do whatsoever). I only paid first and last month rent. SO the new first/last month rent is just like paying rent. I didn’t pay this month’s rent – that will become the new place’s “last” month rent. The triple $250 is what I have to figure out how to pay. That will probably mean no debt payments next month and some dipping into the EF. A temporary loss for a large gain.

One of the best things about the building I’m in now is that because it’s a commercial space, the utilities are very cheap. My $20/month in electric, my $60-$80 in gas heating (only in the winter), and my $15 garbage will be significantly increased I’m sure. Plus I’ll be getting internet. It’s been so many years since I’ve had to have it I’m not even sure who offers it and how expensive it is! It will definitely be nice to have access to it again. Again, since I’m in a commercial area, no dsl, no cable. Clearwire we tried, but the location we are in the building didn’t give us a good signal, so it was a waste of a year’s commitment (rarely useable).

J has agreed to pay more rent, which is nice. I hope he can afford it. He has no savings, he hasn’t paid off his credit card (it only has a small balance, under $1K), and he refuses to budget or talk about money. It’s his big trigger point. I’ve assumed that all the deposits will be paid by me, since he doesn’t have the money. I’ve also ensured that if he can’t pay rent, I can afford it. That’s why we’re in a tiny house. If I could count on him paying more, then I would have gone for the next step up in houses (larger, enough room, a second floor maybe), but I’d rather suffer a small space to continue keeping my rent manageable. I don’t want to overextend on housing and slow down my debt payments.

So here’s an update on my frugal performance for the past 8.5 days, since finding out I had almost no money left in my checking account, and after overzealously paying bills and debt. I hadn’t realized I’d be in this pickle, so didn’t have certain items stocked up and still had to do 2 quick food purchases. I made an effort to spend as little as possible, to use as much out of my larder and fridge as possible, and to definitely NOT eat out. Not even once. How’d I do? Pretty darn good:

Food: $57
Liquor: $13.95 (my one vice, and I was out and didn’t feel like waiting)
Gas: $38 (which absolutely could not be avoided)
Coffee/snacks: $7.53
Total: $116.48

I also spent money on a new pair of shoes that I had already planned on purchasing. I just happened to pay for it directly out of my checking account. My clothes fund is completely depleted. I did not spend as wisely as I had hoped (but I was at no point totally frivolous either!). I just need to be better prepared. I should definitely be socking away money for clothes/shoes more than I had been. I will be doing a much better job on this starting in January. I don’t really expect to buy any more clothes between now and the end of the year. It’s also unrealistic to expect to find the quality and sizes that I need at a thrift store. They don’t have clothes my size very much, and in addition, the selection these days SUCKS.

The only frivolous thing I bought was a $4 coffee so that I could sit at an internet café and use the internet for several hours on Saturday (not required, I could have gone to a library or something for free), and then I didn’t plan for hunger, and had to get something late afternoon at Barnes & Noble (a $3.53 stuffed pretzel), since I had missed lunch and couldn’t stand waiting until I got home. I need to plan better and bring a hunk of bread and cheese, some nuts, a piece of fruit, or something! I used to buy various fruit/nut bars, but haven’t in quite some time (at $1.50 a pop, that’s rather expensive).

Not bad! It should also be noted that the money I spent on food, while a lot, was for 2 people. I bought food for both myself and J, since he couldn’t (he was in dire financial straights as well this past week).  It primarily went towards a pot roast, at about $4 a serving (we got 5 servings out of it) plus a bottle of wine (hey it was a Sunday!); and then I just bought a chicken and a bunch of veggies. We had the most amazing homemade pot pies from the roasted chicken, which amounts to 4 large servings (the single best reason everyone should have puff pastry in the freezer).  Plus we still have half the bird left for other things. That’s 6 servings out of a whole $6 (on sale) free-range chicken. Whoops, again, I bought a bottle of wine to go with it.

I should also be praised for not once going out to eat this whole week and to exist completely out of cooked leftovers and scrounged food (all completely filling and delicious).

Now I have to go deposit my paycheck and pay back my borrowed savings! I also have to fill my truck back up with gas, buy a lot of kitty supplies (they are out of kibble, wet food, and litter), and of course, stock up on some food items this weekend (have plenty to last until the weekend). Here’s to a more frugal future!

This is my first net worth calculation! I don’t own a home. I have a lot of debt. But I invested a sizeable amount (with an excellent match by my employer) in my 401K when I was in my 20s. When all is calculated, I come out with a positive number. Not very high, it’s only 4 digits, but it’s a start, and it will continue to grow as the economy improves, as I pay off my debt, and increase my savings. I expect I’ll see growth into the 5 digits by March of 2010.

So here are the numbers (and excuse the boring plain text – I’ll get a pretty & colorful table by the time I do my next posting):

Assets:
Cash $700
Savings $849
401K (current) $4520
401K (rolled over) $39,392
Net Assets: $45,569

Liabilities:
SBA: $27860
Line of Credit: $304
Citibank: $0
Discover: $4065
US Bank: $6014
Net Liabilities: $38,243

Total Net Worth: $7,218

What personality type are you: do you use freebies the moment you get them, or do you save them for a rainy day? I tend to be more of the latter type. As part of my being more frugal while my funds are low, I have been avoiding purchasing small things unless I dearly need to. Yesterday I ran out of cream, so couldn’t and didn’t make coffee at home. When I got to work, I felt the lack like a big empty hole inside. Something was missing! Oh yes, my caffeine addiction! My pseudo-breakfast!

I was all set to just go and buy a coffee at the place down the street, which I have been oh, so good about avoiding in the last 2 weeks. But then I remembered I had a free coffee waiting to be used! I have been saving up their coffee stamp card until I really needed it, and today was the day. I got a luscious white chocolate mocha. Yum. Totally delectable and totally free. Am I ever so glad I waited to use it.

That was yesterday, and today I’m drinking office coffee (not as good, but also free). I think I may have some more free coffee cards stashed at home. I probably also have a free CD coming my way from Easy Street Records that I haven’t cashed in. There are definitely some albums I am interested in getting. Hmmm, what else can I cash in this week, which seems all about making do with what you’ve already got.

I recently heard that Citibank, in preparation of the upcoming consumer credit protection bill being enacted in February, raised rates significantly, to 30%, for some of its customers. Yet another reason I’m glad to be closing my account with them!

You’ll remember my post last winter, when they sent me a notice of increasing rates. I could choose to opt out, but they would close my card at the date of expiration and I would have to pay off the balance at that time. As a long-time customer of 18 years, I did open it in college after all and it was my first credit card, this is how they repay my loyalty? Well screw them, I said at the time. This just makes me extra glad that I’m going to get rid of the card next year.

Oh, I plan on closing it myself iin advance of that date, which will be much better for my credit score. But it makes my poor, little consumer heart glad to give them the old heave-ho. I don’t carry a balance, and always pay them in full 100% and have for the last year.

I can’t wait until my debts are paid off. I can tell you I don’t plan on using credit cards much anymore!!