Moving… cleaning up…and budget craziness
My life is a whirlwind of activity and will continue to be so until March. I’m just going to post a hodge podge of activity financially related that have been impacting me this month:
When ex-mr. maven left, he also left a lot of crap for me to deal with. I may not have mentioned it previously, but he was a bit of a pack rat/scavenger. He would collect odds and ends that he would want to use for building a house, or furniture he wanted to refinish at some point, etc. etc. He also is an artist/photographer like me, so he would collect and hoard frames (particularly large ones) for projects, most of which were not used, particularly since we could get them for free from my job. So when he left behind his sh*t, I was left to pick up the pieces. Literally. Luckily a good friend (of us both) offered to help, so she helped me pick up a rental truck, and haul all the crap into the truck. By the end of the day, here’s what we did: 3250 lbs of refuse, one 14’ rental truck, PACKED TO THE GILLS with trash, 7 hours of labor, $239 for the dump fees, $46 for the rental, $8 for the gas (plus a meal for us both, I bought her breakfast for her help). You can bet mr. maven will pay me back for this. This unfortunately had to go onto my BECU credit card, until I have enough to pay it.
I’m pretty close to the edge with my finances right now. I pretty much have my paycheck fully spent and apportioned by the time I get it (including paying myself first into my mini-fund savings and debt payments), so I don’t often have a lot left over for additional spending. Thus, unexpected things like the dump fees go straight onto the credit card until my next paycheck. As long as it gets paid off before the next statement, there are no fees.
Ex mr. maven just got hired, yeah!!! He has a service job and will be making 15.50/hr…to start. Not bad! His expenses will be relatively low, plus he’s less than 5 miles from home, so his travel expenses will be low. They provide him a uniform, so no expensive suits. He will hopefully still pursue work in the legal field and continue to look for higher paying jobs. As he is able to pick and choose employment more easily than most places in the US (due to the oil boom there), he should continue to try and move up the payscale ladder! I fully expect him to repay me for the costs of getting rid of his garbage.
Ex-mr. maven also mentioned he wanted to pay me back for some of the missed expenses while we were living together. I can’t remember if I mentioned it, but the last 3-4 months of him living with me he paid at most $100 towards rent per month. It was a major sore point. Financial inequality like that really causes friction and resentment. It did little for our relationship, and we did have heated discussions more than once by the end of that time period (and just before he told me he was leaving). I won’t hold my breath, but I hope that he will at least give me $300 for the dump/uhaul.
Tonight, whoo hoo, I get the keys to my new apartment! I have already packed a bunch of stuff and will try and bring a car load of stuff every evening to reduce the difficulty of a) finding enough packing materials to do it in 1 go, b) lower the time/energy expenditure to carry ALL MY STUFF into the truck, IN ONE DAY, UP ONE FLIGHT OF STAIRS and c) reducing the time commitment of all the people who are offering to help so it’s not such an onerous activity. Plus, I’ve been having bad luck getting free supermarket fruit boxes, so I don’t have a ton to go around. I hope to unpack the boxes I bring over so I can reuse them. It may be a little challenging to put them places, when I don’t have furniture there yet, but there should be enough room to stash stuff/pile it, plus all the closets I have! Update: I’ve now hauled 2 car loads of stuff and the piles of stuff is a bit unnerving, but what else can I do? Most of my furniture won’t fit in my car! Plus I can’t move it myself, safely.
I have made a big pile of stuff to get rid of. Rather than put it in the dump or just take it straight to a donation truck, I want to try and recoup some money for having purchased all that crap in the beginning, or for my time and energy in cleaning up after mr. maven’s departure (a good portion is his!). So this weekend I’m having a yard sale. Rain or shine! After all, I have a covered back porch. I have been making signs to post, which take time, and I have to post photos and details to craigslist tonight. Since you only get 4 small images per post, I’m going to post a few times so people get a sense for what I have. Whatever doesn’t sell I will donate. I can bring most of it in a car to the donation truck, which sits every weekend, in a parking lot 3 miles from my house. There is a large piece of furniture I need to get rid of that I may not be able to sell. It’s too big for my car. That’s the only iffy part that I’m not looking forward to.
My company has a nice relationship with a local trucking company – we lease a fleet of trucks with them, so they know us and offer good discounts to employees on rental trucks (particularly for me, since I call them regularly!). Uhaul charges $30/day plus .99/mi mileage. Let’s just say that I am getting a screaming deal. They will let me rent, with a Friday pickup, for a whole weekend, for 1 day, $20, plus only .1/mile. I doubt it will cost more than $35, plus the cost of fuel. I will need to use the truck for a dump run/donating large bulky items that won’t fit in my car, if needed.
With all the stuff going on, moving, packing, planning, yard sale, organizing, did I mention packing? All by myself… well, let’s just say that I’m having difficulty focusing well on food and food preparation. My energy level is hit and miss, so I am not preparing food quite up to the standard I usually do. I bought lunch out today since I didn’t plan and make enough food for dinner and lunch. I expect this behavior to persist for the next 2 weeks. I’m not going to sweat it. If I eat out lunch 3+ days a week for 2 weeks, so be it. It’s good for my sanity, if a minor hit to my budget.
My finances are still haywire and probably won’t be normal until April. I still have expenses from January that will hit me in the February budget (since they are on my credit card, which delays payment by a month). I had to spend more on my deposit/first month rent. The total for that is $1270. Rent ($695), extra week of rent prorated ($175) for access in February, the storage space ($50), and my deposit ($350). Luckily I had already paid my last month’s rent for my current place in the beginning, so it wasn’t a double overlap of rent for 2 places at the same time, just a few hundred extra. I was able to cover it on one paycheck, but it didn’t leave much extra for anything else. I will have an additional truck rental for the move to pay for this month, too, and the $300 dump run fees from mr. maven – I will get that back, but it may be a month or two after I pay for it (to avoid credit card fees). In March, I won’t have rent to pay, so all my “rent” will go to debt (yeah!!!), so that will skew the March budget in a strange way. I’ll also get back some of my deposit from my current place by end of March, so that will be extra income. And I should get some snowball money from the yard sale next weekend. So you see, nothing will be right or normal until April.
Time for work…debtmaven out!
Do you trust the people you work with?
I’ve griped lots about my job and coworkers on this blog through the past few years. However, there is one facet that I have never really discussed – and that’s how everyone looks out for each other. We may all have issues with each other, and there may be enormously distinct cliques and favorites, but the one thing you can count on with EVERYONE I work with is honesty.
I work in a unique environment. We handle high value objects for the public, and are given immense responsibility in how we handle these objects. Part of that is going through a background check upon employment. Not a drug test (80% of the company would fail, from what I’ve surmised, even a good portion of the management), but an actual criminal, complete, full, background check. I guess that accomplishes something good – people I work with are upstanding, honest people.
Enough already, what am I talking about? Well, yesterday, I was on my way home, and got a call from a coworker. They found my wallet in the parking lot and were going to leave it on my desk. Yeah! I didn’t even know it was missing! (but it would explain that wierd bump when I pulled out that I don’t ever remember in that area of the parking lot). I don’t even have to wonder if any cash is missing. No one at work would do that. How do I know? My wallet is still at work, and I’m not overly worried. On an almost daily basis, someone will leave their wallet on the main counter in the building. Happens almost daily. Phones, personal effects, you name it. I’ve been working there over 5 years and I have never heard of a theft of personal items since I’ve been there. It just doesn’t happen. There is a sense of camraderie among many of my coworkers. It’s pretty common for Friday at the end of the day to gather in the kitchen, buy a case or so of beer, chips, snacks and hang around and decompress. One coworker has even brought in bloody mary fixings (a gallon of homemade bloody mary mix, a big selection of celery and asparagus, and of course, 3-4 liters of vodka, hey, we all seem to drink a lot 🙂 ). Hard liquor is not unknown, either (but as it’s more expensive, it’s less common than cheap beer).
So how is it where you work? Do you worry about leaving your bag unattended at your desk? Do you take your purse (if you use one) everywhere you go? Or are you blithely unconcerned about your stuff because you trust everyone you work with, like I do?
2012 changes continue
In January I lost my ex’s share of rent due to him packing up for greener fiscal pastures (see my post on his move to ND). What to do, what to do? Get a second job? Not so easy and a big pill to swallow. Move to a new residence? Looking pretty necessary.
So I discussed with my bff and former roommate and she expressed interest in sharing a house together. Roommates/sharing expenses/high cost of utilities are a common theme in our discussions. We even went to look at a few places.
Thursday she came over and told me she wants to stay where she is, to keep her gym and weight loss regiment stable. I totally understood! Plus, she has been making noises of possibly moving away from Seattle, and within the year. It would suck to get a house togther, then have her leave and have to find a replacement roommate. What if I couldn’t? I’d be stuck with a higher rent than I’m currently paying! So that plan was off.
We discussed what I should do and all things seemed pointed to me moving. I’ve never ever in my life considered an apartment. It seems so…clinical. I mean, come on, a beige box, cheap housing, usually on main roads, ugly views… Keep in mind that I’m sure there are very nice apartments out there, but my goal is a less expensive place that I can live in while saving money. I don’t really want to do the high-end high-cost apartments. I could also do the roommate/shared house thing. I seriously considered applying for the roommate option, but here are my considerations:
I am 40 and have accumulated furniture. I can’t fit all my stuff in the back of my car any longer. I have a couch, a buffet, 2 full-size bookshelves, a dresser, a bed, and a lounge chair. That won’t fit in a bedroom. I have a whole bunch of kitchen stuff (I love to cook). Plus I have bicycles and lots of art for art shows, and I mean a LOT (which consume a lot of space). I’d have to find a place with either 2 bedrooms (more expensive apartment), or get a place and pay for a storage unit. Plus I don’t really want the drama of comings and goings and rules of houseshares (been there, done that, it can be a lot of work).
On Thurs night I started looking for apartments. On Friday at work I decided to look again, and try and schedule some walk-throughs for Saturday. I set up 2 apointments and left a bunch of appointments.
The first one I looked at was perfect. Old historic building, lots of vintage charm, working fireplace, relatively large, with ONSITE storage available for $50 (in the shed next door, plenty big for ALL of my art and my bikes!). Only problem? It was in seriously high demand, in a very very sought after location, Alki beach, steps from the water, and he had 10 appointments scheduled for the rest of the day (he had even pulled the ad from craigslist after a few hours due to the demand). Ugh. I did my best to sell myself and be congenial. I gave him my manager’s name and phone number as a reference for employment. I was woefully unprepared. I didn’t have any of my old landlord names or phone numbers. My smartphone internet connection was not working and I couldn’t even look up a property manager’s phone number. Ugh! I left, sad and wistful.
3 hours later, he called and said it was mine if I wanted. How soon could I move in? My manager apparently really sold me to him! And apparently I’m a really good fit. And no one ever leaves this place – most people have been there over 10 years (it has 6 units). OMG. I was terrified. It’s one thing to know I have to move. It’s another to actually make it final.
I called my current landlord, broke the bad news, gave notice, and went to sign paperwork. Whew. It’s official. I can move in 2 weeks, and have to be out of my current place by March 1.
Here’s the breakdown:
Current Rent: $895
Current Utilities (averaged): Gas ($50/month), Electric ($70/month), Water/Sewer/Garbage ($80/month)
Total: $1095
New Rent: $695
New Utilities: Electric only ($50/month is my guess)
Storage: $50
Total: $795
Savings: $300 per month!
I guess I’ll just have to get used to living on the beach instead of having a private back yard. And I get to stay in the same general neighborhood, which is what I wanted. It’s bittersweet, but will be good for me in the long run.
Here’s to achieving your goals this year…
debtmaven out.
Taking lunch to work – revisited
It’s been probably, oh, a year now since I decided I would try and bring my lunch to work on a consistent basis. How’ve I been doing? Amazing!!!! It’s such a habit that I can’t imagine NOT bringing my lunch. Going out or getting take out to bring back to my desk is such a foreign concept. At most I have to buy lunch about once a month (I kid you not)!
If you don’t already bring YOUR lunch to work, why not? What’s stopping you? You can’t use the not enough time excuse – it takes less time to prepare lunch than it does to drive somewhere, order, purchase, and return to work than prepping ever does! And so what, you’ll save so much money, it will be worth it. And you can always prep the evening before, before going to bed. If I’m uber prepared, that’s what I do. More often, however, I make lunch for 20 minutes every morning. Even I, the most degenerate sleeper-inner that there is, gets up early enough to prepare lunch. Almost every single day.
If variety is your problem, well, that is a good one, but I doubt you’re eating a different take out meal every day for a month. There are lots of options. I often shake it up week by week, but I’m actually ok eating the same thing for a few days.
So what do I typically eat? Here’s a sample:
Coffee – I fill my 16 oz. insulated mug and off I go.
1 apple, cut up into thin slices. It’s the perfect snack size. Pour some lemon juice on it (those little plastic squeeze bottles are perfect and they make it taste better too. I guess I’ve been eating an apple a day for a full year now!
A secondary snack: a cup of yogurt, some carrots sliced into carrot sticks, maybe a little container of hard cheese and an ounce of nuts, almonds, pecans, or walnuts. The cheese/nuts combo also goes great with the apple.
For the main course, I’ll have one of the following:
leftovers from dinner the night before. If you are a family of 2, buy the value packs at the market, and make leftovers for you both. Instead of one head of broccoli to steam, make two! Making baked potatoes, add an extra one in the oven. Pasta? Super easy to make enough for leftovers.
Sometimes I’ll make stew, which will last as lunch for like 2-3 days beyond the first dinner. This week I made chuck stew with beer, onions, leeks, carrots, and lentils. Mmmmm. That $12 will make 4-5 meals. Freshen it up with a hunk of baguette and butter, or put it over some egg noodles or rice if it gets tired after a few times.
My tried and true standby is a sandwich. A good sliced bread, deli meat, lettuce, and maybe a thin slice of cheese. Add mayo or avocado as a healthy replacement fat. Mmm, perfect! I have gotten a little bored with this one, so lately I’m doing leftovers more often than not.
If the main course isn’t enough, and I forgot to eat breakfast, and a bunch of fresh fruit doesn’t do the trick, I’ll supplment with tea, packages of apple cider, hot chocolate, or those paper packages of cup o’ soup.
DebtMaven 