Change Is In The Air

The first blogs I ever read taught me how to cook and shop responsibly when my life depended on it. Not only did I learn to bake bread, then pizza, and eventually homemade pasta, but it was a real relief to know there were other women, couples, and families scraping by on almost no income. And they were doing it for funsies. I desperately needed that community when I was a young wife with no money or family support.

Funny thing about that community is that we didn't have too much else in common. For a number of reasons, my favorite bloggers were skirt-clad mothers milking goats, homeschooling their half a dozen kids, and using the phrase "stewardship." In the meantime, I was a very active member of the feminist and lesbian organizations on campus, spent my days tutoring Japanese students and grading papers for my soon-to-be-ex-professors, and was of course the breadwinner of my household.

Now I know that there's a lot more diversity than judgement in this crowd, but at the time my greatest desires were to be accepted and relevant. So it wasn't until my radical feminist friends and I drifted our separate ways (they in the direction of graduation and careers, myself towards Texas) that the time seemed right for my Challenge.

With the guidance of my fairy blogmothers and the encouragement of numerous long-time readers whom Darling has dubbed "The Mother Hens" (you know who you are), I cultivated many frugal and enjoyable hobbies to share on my own blog. Sewing, knitting, cooking, baking, gardening, brewing beer, buying local organic produce and bulk grains, canning, green cleaning, and conserving resources were my primary activities. Some months were better than others, but ultimately I felt proud that Darling and I were living within our means and by our principles.

And then a year ago we moved into a co-op.

We'd become so dedicated to eating locally that bananas looked foreign and even a little offensive. We were so unused to packaging that the store-bought cheeses and cartons of soymilk were discouraging. We knew that our standards might be a little extreme even for the average Austin hippie, so Darling and I did not suggest the house totally forgo store-bought bread. I imagined that if we baked our own, others would eat it and the house would naturally stop buying bread. The same would go for cheese and yogurt. Soon, we'd be growing so much food that our grocery bills would naturally dip and become non-existent as a household, and everyone would quit their jobs and spend our days turning compost and brewing hard cider.

Not so much.

When I bake bread, there is an immediate uproar. Everyone slathers the hot, yeasty slices with butter and honey and within hours two loaves have become one. And the remaining bread is never touched again. I don't know why. We eat leftovers; a big pot of rice and beans is eaten with gusto over the course of days. But even when I was bringing in professionally baked, sliced bread from the bakery, it was ignored so long as we had the traditional stuff.

The same thing happened with my yogurt. People love the yogurt, but not so much that they won't buy the identically flavored stuff anyway, and then both jars spoil before they are finished. Same with homemade dressings and even delicious ketchup. I have battled this for a year. So have the gardeners, who spend hours a day ensuring the house has a steady supply of fresh greens and root vegetables. But the grocery bill stays the same. When we save money eating home-grown greens, we splurge on orange juice and, yes, bananas.

Since everyone in the house cooks on a fairly regular basis, I don't need to be in the kitchen every day. Since the garden is managed by two semi-professionals, I leave them to it. I dropped these hobbies not out of necessity, but because a community allows us to live in a fairly conscious manner without being totally conscious about it all the time. Suddenly there was a lot less to blog about, because these crafts weren't really saving me money...in fact, I could no longer really save money, our needs are covered by a fixed rate. Everything else is excess.

The other day I caught myself fantasizing about living in a small lonely cabin somewhere northwest, knitting by a fire while bread bakes in the oven. Surprised by this desire, I wondered what I really wanted, and realized that a lot of my activism, and resulting feelings of self-worth, results from what I do from home in the kitchen. It makes sense, since my heroes are back-to-the-landers and modern pioneers, but at the same time I think that a sustainable future for mankind lies in urban community development and cooperative living.

It seems that I got so caught up in Homemaking 101 that when homemaking became less relevant in my life, so did my principles.

Thus my pursuit of self-improvement via meditation, martial arts, and yoga. I don't want to stall at this period of my life, because Darling and I have a long way to go, promises to keep and so on. I've wondered if some bloggers slow down or stop after five or so years because they find themselves in a similar position: having mastered certain areas of their lives, yet unable to maintain perfection, they see nowhere else to go but backwards.

About six years ago I looked for inspiration and guidance from matronly figures that were lacking in my childhood, mothers and grandmothers who would share the secrets of yarn and dough, marriage and housekeeping. At 25 I have different needs and areas for growth, and it is my hope that this blog evolves with me. Ultimately, this will continue to be a blog about money, and will always be a critic of the credit industry. But it took me a full year to realize that I very nearly SUCCESSFULLY eliminated the need for an actual, at-all-traditional budget from my life, which is a massive step towards total financial freedom. It also took me a year to realize that I've been emulating people who share my core values, but can only teach me so much on this journey, and whose lifestyles don't actually relate to my own vision.

Strange though it might seem, this is a scary point in my life because I don't know where to go next. At 19 years of age I honestly didn't know how to be a wife or a grown-up. At 25 I'm contemplating becoming a freaking Yogi. Life is weird. Especially from a financial perspective.

Big Much Catch Up

Oh wow, so much went on this week.

I'll start with the fact that Darling and I played host to the Best Guests Ever. I have been looking forward to Beany and Mr. Beany coming to Austin for months, and I finally got to meet them in person Friday afternoon at Wheatsville. I led them down The Drag , across downtown to see the Metro station, across the bridge along Congress Street, back up 1st street, and then to the co-op. Because we had limited time (less than 48 hours) and only so much energy (I couldn't get off work either day they were in town), I tried to give them as authentic an experience as possible without going straight up tourist. So for dinner we had tacos from a "trailer park," which is a grouping of trailers serving a variety of foods and drinks. This particular park had a fire pit, so we got to chat for a bit in the warmth of a campfire.

This was an amazing experience not only because I got to meet one of my favorite bloggers, but because Darling and Mr. Beany got along crazy well. They're both very into computers and software, history and all science, and were soon debating the status of Turkey's position with the European Union.

Earlier that evening I had mentioned a nearby dive bar. And beloved readers, this is an honest to goodness Hole with a capital H. Not Hole in The Wall, which is a pretend dive. The sort of place no honest blogger would take her guests. Except Mr. Beany kind of insisted. So we went to the dive and ordered the most ironic beer that people actually drink in Austin: Lone Star.

Austin has about a zillion good breweries. Lone Star is a joke, but it's cheap, so everyone drinks it by the bucket. We had a round of tallboys, then actually drank some Rio Blanco and Real Ale, so as not to anger the Beer Gods.

In the meantime, two things happened while Beany and I chatted about communal living, charitable giving, values and what not. First, Darling and Mr. Beany just about started a bar fight, but they are fortunately both very macho and use big threatening words to stand their ground against drunken jerks. And second, the worst metal band I've ever heard took the stage.

So, in case anyone else wants to visit me, this is the Tread Softly Austin Experience: tacos out of trailer, cheap beer amongst an aggressive populace, and the worse possible auditory experience in the live music capitol of the world. But man, it was one of the best nights I've had in ages :)

This morning I crawled out of bed sore and sleepy and threw together ingredients which, despite my haze, convincingly resembled blueberry-walnut waffles. My guests had lunch at my workplace and then bid me farewell. This experience seriously made my week, I was on Cloud 9 the rest of the day.

I'd like to leave it at that, but like I mentioned, a lot has happened.

• My Mom is now living with my step mom part time here in Austin. This is good and bad. Either way, it is the sort of family drama that wants all of my attention. How much attention have I had to give? None.
• Darling quit his job. It was kind of sudden, but also kind of planned.
• In kind of unrelated news, I got another job. Like, on accident. At a local coffee shop which specializes in local products. Am I happy? I don't know.
• I missed Capoeira twice this week. And I'll miss Tuesday :(
• I was unexpectedly offered another job this week: babysitting an eight-month old on Mondays. Can I juggle two infants? If I can, it will pay for my tuition....

Feeling Good!

How Awesome is Beth Terry over at Fake Plastic Fish? Way awesome. So awesome, in fact, that she hosted one of the few give-aways that has ever tempted me, passing along a pair of Feelgoodz flip-flops.

And I WON! Not at first. Someone else won the original random drawing. However, I won by having size 8 1/2 feet. Yay for me.

The Feelgoodz are cute. To be fair, it doesn't take much to strike me as cute: all black will do the trick. But what's really important is that these babies are comfy. There seems to be a lot more cushion to these all-natural latex flops than I've noticed on any other pair before. The tread looks like it might hold its own against hot Texas sidewalks as well. I gave up on flip-flops a long time ago because my shoes must withstand the test of being a primary mode of transportation. But I can see that these will live a good long life as lounging-around, nipping into the garden, strolling to yoga class shoes. And when they do wear thin? Straight into the compost!

Thanks again to Beth, who is now giving away a plastic-free wooden brush. Everyone go comment ASAP!

Trading Lunch for Dinner

The lunch shift at my current job is easy, relaxed, and short. I meander in by 10:30 a.m., open the doors at 11 a.m., close them three hours later, give the place a good cleaning, and head out an hour later.

Sadly, there's not a lot of money in it. Even though we open at 11 a.m., most days we only get a couple of tables before noon. There's rarely ever any sort of rush, and we're only steady at all between 1 and 2 p.m. So for about 5 hours of work, I'm only really earning tips for about an hour and a half.

Since I really, really wanted a regular schedule, I balanced this effective pay cut by working five days a week instead of four. So basically I spent this month working more hours for less money than my coworkers.

If my routine was otherwise manageable, I could handle the money thing. But considering my entire Monday is devoted to Baby-O, I'm working six days a week. That leaves me only one day to catch up on a lot of my social obligations, run errands, do my house chores, and recover from my Tuesday and Thursday Capoeira work-outs. Not sustainable. Today Darling and I both came home from work, fell into bed, and passed out for hours. That's the first time I've voluntarily missed a Capoeira class since discovering it last month.

So today I e-mailed my manager and asked to be put on a basic rotating schedule, a mix of profitable dinner shifts and relaxing lunches. I'm going to keep very careful track of my income this month, so I can properly gauge exactly how much money this flexibility will earn me. I also have to figure out how Darling and I are going to manage saving $300 a month (starting next month...hopefully?) as well as the money we need for him to finish classes.

New InTuition

Darling finished registering for classes yesterday and made his first of four payments of $159.50. This will increase out debt by $638, and we won't finish paying it off until April. But it's a manageable payment plan and I'm hoping to earn enough money to pay his Summer tuition out-of-pocket.

Because I'm also hoping to make rent this month I only sent the student loan company $9 this week and the same to our emergency fund (none went to investments).

The past several weeks I have started learning to recognize priorities. It recently occurred to me that I pursue diversity with a passion, but totally fail at dedication. This makes me a dabbler, toying with a number of theories and activities and skills, none of which I have the diligence to master.

I juggled these D's in my head on my trips to and from Capoeira. The moment I saw an advertisement for the class in the newspaper, I knew it was for me. And every session has made me a slightly better person, a little more whole than the day before. Why? I dunno. It's just happening. Maybe it's also my improved work schedule, diet, and getting regular sleep. But suddenly, I don't want to conquer every single skill there ever was before I'm thirty. I don't need to be a plumber, and cobbler, and nurse. And most important, there is a driving force within me that supersedes ego, greed, envy, impatience, and boredom. I have a trustworthy intuition.

In other words, I might have lost my mind, but it seems to make me saner. More grounded, at least.

So as far as priorities go, what am I realizing? Well, I love domestic bliss, and like waiting tables, but my goals require a steady and dependable way of earning a higher income. College is great, but I get distracted and bored too easily and can't think of any career that both interests me and requires a degree. I honestly prefer manual work, something that keeps me moving. I also want to help people, perhaps through healing or teaching.

It's kind of ridiculous how many times I dismissed the idea of becoming a yoga teacher. It's been on my mind for years, but one of the very few silly ideas I haven't frantically pursued. Yoga teachers, after all, must be calm and serene, devoted and beautiful. And heaven forbid I think of myself that way! Darling mentioned it once or twice, and I dismissed him.

Then this morning I woke up and went to work, went to the bathroom to fix my hair, caught a glance of my reflection and knew that it's going to happen.

YogaYoga has a 200 hour Kundalini certification course that starts every September. That gives me nearly a year to save the $3,000 tuition and develop a personal practice in preparation. It also gives me plenty of time to check my motives, make sure this is what I really want.

Working, Eating, Walking, and Blowing

Yikes! Where have I been, and what have I been up to?

Well, I added a day to my work schedule, and that hit me a little harder than expected. I've discovered that even if I don't have to be at work until 10:15 in the morning, it's not my tendency to wake up at 7 a.m. and have several productive hours to myself. It's not that I sleep in and still arrive at work groggy and befuddled, but I do tend to have just enough time for a leisurely stretch and a large breakfast. I have been meeting my goal of a big breakfast every single morning, and even managed a meditation session or two.

My time after work has been spent gaming with friends, attending house-related social events, and attending Capoeria Angola classes, my new most favorite activity ever.

I'm proud to announce that Darling and I have not eaten out at all this month so far. I did buy snacks at a grocery store for a couple of gatherings, but I feel this hardly counts.

I bought a new pair of Newbalance shoes from their online store. Long-time readers know that I do not believe in buying new clothing, and new shoes are especially morally troublesome. For a long time I bought shoes the same as anything else: looking for good as new, quality brands at thrift stores and free boxes. And I did occasionally find good shoes. But since I walk everywhere and work on my feet, even an evening in bad shoes leaves me nearly crippled for a week. After developing excruciating, bone-spur-like growths on both feet, I decided to purchase brand new shoes from here on out. Since then, I've bought two pairs and learned two lessons.

First: New shoes, at the rate of wear I put on them, still only have about a year of life. Which, besides glasses, makes them not only the most expensive part of my wardrobe, but the shortest lived.

Second: A new, but cheap, pair of shoes is worse than a second-hand quality pair of shoes. The ones I bought at target less than a year ago developed holes over the toes before the tread wore down. I have walked massive holes through the soles of more shoes than I can count - never have the tops fallen apart first. That's just absurd.

There are some good companies that sell walking and running shoes in Austin, but I flaked this time and ordered a pair of basic white shoes on clearance online.

In other news, Darling is registering for classes this week and we will need an "extra" few hundred dollars for that. He's taking an easier semester to start and catching up on his electives: History, Spanish, Literature, and only one scary tech course. He doesn't start until January, but I guess that's just around the corner. In the meantime, early next month we're bartering with glass-blowing friends to have an introductory class. I'm trading home-made cream cheese, bread, and yogurt.

Food And Other Goals

After a full week without Internet, I'm back online!

On my last post, Lizzie asked me if I can justify eating out when our rent at the co-op covers food. It's true that this (and not having to go to the grocery store every week), is one of the greatest benefits of sharing expenses with nine other people. The first month or so that Darling and I lived at the co-op, we balked at the idea of spending any more money on food.

We obviously eat out now, however. And I guess we justify it like everyone else. Food at the grocery store, whether purchased as a group or individual, will pretty much always be cheaper than what you can get at any restaurant. Darling and I love eat out because it's convenient when we're across town and hungry, with a group of friends or picky family members, or spending a special evening together. What's more: Darling and I love sampling the amazing variety that the Austin food scene has to offer.

Debbie M made the excellent suggestion that we find a cheaper way to spend Sunday with our friends. I should probably mention that Sunday is spent playing (free) games. My friend M is a professional game designer and has been my GM for about a decade now. The reason we spend money (usually about $12 a week) is that we do this for a good chunk of the day, and everyone in the nine person group habitually go in for a pizza together, pick up snacks from the store, do a sandwich run, or otherwise have dinner together. Cooking at the host's house isn't really an option, neither is hosting the Sunday game at ours, and transporting a potluck meal by bus is awkward. Darling and I sometimes pack a couple of sandwiches, and will hopefully get better at this over time, but it's hard to resist temptation when everyone else is pitching in for treats.

Having said all that, I have made a couple of food-related goals for myself. The first is to work my way through The Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbook, recipe by recipe. This is one of my favorite cookbooks, which taught me to make chocolate pudding and egg drop soup. I'm well into the first section, which is all about soup. I make double portions so there is enough to feed everyone in the house, which means there are usually leftovers the next day. Yesterday I made Spicy Creamy Eggplant Soup, so today I had plenty of time to bake a Cocoa Angel Food Cake (from the Joy of Cooking) for a housemate's birthday. I was treated to dinner last week by a family member, but other than that Darling and I have yet to eat out this month.

The second goal is to eat a huge breakfast every single morning, and maintain a regular eating schedule for the rest of the day. So far I've done really well up until 4:00, when I tend to get home from work. Dinner - especially the soups - seem to take forever. If I don't eat before seven, I get severe junk food cravings and really resist the desire to just go to Magnolia Cafe. If I eat after seven - and I mean anything after seven - I get grumpy and weird before bed and am much more likely to demand Blue Bell ice cream at midnight. Which has nothing to do with finances. Why do I share this stuff?

My third goal is less about food and more about something new and amazing I discovered two weeks ago. There is a tiny new community center in East Austin which offers Capoeira Angola classes. The moment I learned about this - which happened to be at 6:45 Thursday evening - I knew I had to make the next class - at 7:30 that same evening. Panicking, I threw on a t-shirt and headed out, arriving in a pair of jeans and my rattiest tennis shoes. And it was one of the coolest experiences I've had in ages. Definitely the greatest workout ever. $60 entitles me to 8 classes a month, and I intend to attend as many as possible.

My final goal isn't so physical as mental/spiritual. There is a Shambhala meditation center a few blocks from my house, and I'm going to attend regular group sessions and maybe seek out personal instruction. I don't know why meditation appeals to me (beyond the free aspect of it), but something about it feels right and necessary.

Yikes, how the time passes. So much more to share with you about the past nine days, but my Darling awaits and I've got lots to do tomorrow :)

October 2010 Net Worth

Our house lost Internet access last week, so I have some catching up to do. First, my net worth. We have, or rather, had on the first of the month, a total of $1776 in assets.

Our debt amounts to $11,402.67. This gives us a net worth of -9626.67. That's $56.33 less than less month :(

I paid $54 to my student loan company last month, and only $17.46 came off the principle. That's a little frustrating. My payments weren't simply low due to a local spending spree, as some of you might expect, but because I have a new rule about paying debt. Every time I send money to my student loan company, I put the same amount in my emergency fund, some of which goes into my investment account. It's debatable whether or not this is a good call. I'd save more money on interest than I'm earning with with the money in savings, but everyone everywhere needs a decent savings account and I've been neglecting mine horribly.

Hopefully the AT&T guy will come tomorrow and I can respond to some comments and talk about my thoughts on October.