Thanksgiving Dinner: Lessons Gleaned

Thanksgiving was truly fantastic. It's my third or fourth time serving a vegetarian dinner the day before, and I think it was my smoothest gathering yet. I'm learning from early mistakes, and this is what I've worked out so far:

1. Do any baking earlier in the day, if possible, before the kitchen warms up. I know it makes sense to want a warm dessert (and it could be baking while we eat!) but pie crust rolls out so much easier on cool surfaces with cool hands, and needs the clean counter space before the cooking dishes begin to overflow, and many desserts need time to set. You don't really want to eat a pecan pie straight from the oven, and pumpkin pie is best the next day, and cake needs to cool before it can be iced.

2. Turkey should be first on your list of to-dos, but a vegetarian can wait on the tofurkey. Just don't ever freeze it beforehand, it does fine in the fridge. This shouldn't have taken me six years to work out.

3. Cranberry sauce is the easiest way to impress people ever. Throw a container of fresh or frozen berries in a saucepan with a cup of sugar and some orange zest, put it on low, and leave it until the berries burst (stirring when you feel like it). The end. Easier than opening a can, and a billion times more delicious.

4. This is not the time, believe it or not, for variety. Especially for vegetarians. The first several years I thought I needed a million options for my meat-and-potato loving family to be satisfied with my offering. In the end, people can only put so much food on their plate, and a lot of that is going to be mashed potatoes no matter what. So I haven't done egg rolls since that first year. And this year, even though both the bread and rolls were a hit, I'd probably only do bread next year.

5. Beverages make a gathering feel more luxurious or festive. For the longest time, it didn't occur to me to offer more than water. These days I have sodas, coffees, hot teas, coconut egg nog, and iced tea on offer, and a guest brought wine. Drinks can be expensive, in their way, but I justify it by making darn near everything else from scratch.

6. There's no shame in convenience. In the workshop, R and I have agreed that a tool of almost any price is worthwhile when it makes the job go faster and makes a better product. When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, I dream every year of skipping the boxed tofurkey and making the central entree myself. But there is something comforting about that one boxed comfort: no matter what, it's going to come out just fine, and even the meat eaters seem comforted by that central offering.

VeggieDinner Countdown

Five and a half hours before my vegetarian Thanksgiving Dinner is due to be on the table. So far:

1. One Scratch Pumpkin Pie is cooling on the counter
2. A Dozen Marmalade Tarts next to the pumpkin
3. A Loaf of Bread still in the oven
4. Cranberry Sauce setting on the stove top
5. Sweet Potatoes boiling alongside the sauce

I might have reached a good time to scrub the toilet, sweep the floor, and set up the tables before chopping veggies to roast with the tofurkey, putting together the ingredients for macaroni and cheese, and mixing the biscuit dough...

...or maybe I'll put the pasta on to boil, have a cup of coffee, and chill for a couple of minutes :)

Breaking The Blues

When I'm feeling down, the best cure is to do that particular item that's been languishing on my to-do list. Sometimes it doesn't seem too big or scary, there just doesn't seem to be time for it, though day after day it makes it in the top three items on the must-get-to-its.

I shouldn't put off my tabulations at all, as they're pretty much a central part of who I am, so when that falls behind it's sort of like a normal person not combing her hair (No, I have not combed my hair today, as a matter of fact). A bad sign. I end up writing grumpy, if not outright weepy posts, and sometimes go so far as to post them. Then I try and get to business. Hopefully.

And, once that task is done with, I feel so much better. Even though I had no idea that was the reason I felt so crappy.

So I caught up with my tabulations today, and was so pleased with the numbers. Due to my savings structure, it shouldn't be a surprise that I've spent about 25% of this month's earnings and caught up entirely with rent. The bonus is that I ALSO paid over $500 to debt. I might not have spent 50% less than we earned, but along with the fact that we covered seven out of eight items on our priority list, spent a couple of hundred dollars on eye exams, glasses, and contacts that weren't on the priority list, bought a big ole pile of Thanksgiving dinner groceries, and celebrated one friend's birthday and another friend's Phd. Qualification with expensive drinks and dinner out...that's pretty damn satisfying.

Goal of 2014: Six Months In Six Months

Next month I fully intend to pay off the last of my debt, achieving freedom from that particular burden and forcing me to take the next step, the dreaded step, the tedious step: Saving the Six-Months Emergency Fund.

I have a lot to say about this fund. I don't think it should actually be for emergencies, for instance. And determining how to qualify six months of expenses requires a post unto itself. But, for me, it's always about the Challenge. And, having spent way too long paying off my student loans and other residual debts, the time has come to for a fast, hard, and exhilarating goal.

My plan is extreme enough, however, that I want to take a moment to say that the emergency fund is going to take a normal person a long time to accumulate. Most of you out there are trying to save while making mortgage and car payments. I don't have that strength, resiliency, or patience. Kudos to you. The other day I heard a radio interview in which a woman worried that it would take years for her to save up six months of expenses. That should be normal. In the world of instant gratification, it doesn't seem right. But it is. Very few people out there are saving anything at all, most are spending more than they earn. Never mind that the average financial advice book squeezes the six-month savings into a chapter between "give up the lattes" and "track spending for a couple of months." This is a serious thing, as serious as paying off any large debt, and don't let anyone tell you it should just take less than a year under less than extreme conditions.

So...extreme conditions...

I want to save six months of expenses in six months.

It took me way too long to pay off debt, and I'm ready to move forward. Who knows how long Darling and I will both be working or what sort of obstacles will crop up the moment I drop my guard. I'm ready to start investing, but the six months savings has to come first. So let's get done with it!

I see the Six-Months Savings Goal as something that can be reached both by saving and reducing monthly expenses. So my plan is to replace my net worth weigh in with some sort of graph tracking my progress in terms of percentage saved, rather than dollar amounts. See, if I go the first three months spending, say, $3,000 a month, then manage to cut my spending down to $1,000 a month, I want that to be reflected by my total goal. That means in January I will be aiming for $18,000 saved by the end of June, whereas by June that total will be reduced to $12,000. Which means that if I save $2000 every month, I will have saved only 40% halfway through, but will achieve my goal in perfect time regardless.

This works well for me because I love interactive finances, and will obsess over these numbers even if I simply set up an automatic deduction from my checking account to savings account as a normal person should. It also works because, as I've mentioned recently, my income and expenses are incredibly, incredibly sporadic and, even with three years of data at my fingertips, I couldn't honestly suggest a Six-month savings goal with total certainty. While it might seem absurd to suggest I'd spend $3,000 three months, then $1,000 the next three, it's actually a fairly reasonable estimation of possibility. The fact is, I historically spend every penny, and even if half of those pennies were applied to debt, I plan on investing an equal amount on health issues in the upcoming years. I can't assume my finances will stabilize any time soon, if ever.

I'll calculate the total savings goal by averaging out the previous six months of expenses. For the sake of clarity, I'll offer up some real numbers. As of right now, my Six-Month Goal would be $14,203.23 saved, and I have 8% of that. I would need to save $2,167.21 a month to meet that goal, which right now simply doesn't seem at all possible. To make matters worse, paying $1,000 off my debt next month means that number will probably increase just before the challenge starts. As I can't even imagine looking Darling in the eye and telling him I want to put nearly all of his January pay in a savings account, I expect that my first priority will be to re-introduce some serious frugality into my life to get that total to a manageable level.

Hmmm...maybe I'll launch this challenge with another challenge: a No-Spend January! I bet Darling would be into that! We haven't had an official one in ages :)

My First Positive Net Worth

Today it happened. Today I have a positive net worth.

Actually, it must have happened last week, but I was too busy agonizing over whether or not I should pay off the last of my debt to notice. November 8, 2013 was my personal black Friday, the day my savings and cash on hands outweighed the debt I owed. That fact just didn't click until today, after making a decent student loan payment and realizing my debt now very nearly matches my savings...Holy Compound Interest, Batman!

I'm not going to call it official, not yet. In part because I must be in total shock, because I can't even wrap my mind around that reality yet. In part because I've always done my calculations on the first of every month, and always will, because who knows what will come up in the next three weeks? So long as I have that debt, the positive net worth won't necessarily stick, you know?

I wasn't expecting to reach a positive net worth this way, so I didn't see it coming at all. Today, my net worth is just over $50. For the first time in my entire adult life, I own $50, more or less free and clear.

Can I hold onto that until December 1st? Can I double it by December 1st? How will this tie into the New Years resolutions I've been brainstorming? How can I celebrate, keeping in mind that a romantic dinner will knock my net worth back into the red again?

Work + Art Show + Baby Shower = This Post

I can't believe my last post was only three days ago! The weekend was such a blur...

Friday: running errands with Darling until heading off to the workshop to pack up art show essentials, then working overnight.

Saturday: coming home from work, napping an hour, and then staring out the window for an hour at the gentle drizzle. We shouldn't even pack the truck up in the rain; our instruments are relatively rugged but most cigar boxes are covered in paper. But we go to the show anyway, the clouds never cleared but definitely stopped leaking, and we have the best sells so far. A total of five instruments sold! Another couple of weekends like that and we won't have any stock for serious Christmas vending! We'll have to simply pay ourselves something (we're not sure how much, but the time has come for some sort of remuneration) and start building for spring. Another hour nap and I was off to work..

Sunday: It was a very busy night at work. Even manning the patio I still took a table at five a.m. Barely functional, I could hardly finish my side work and then had to nap in the truck before being able to drive home. But when I did arrive home, Darling and our roommate/landlord Mordi were scrubbing the house clean as though there lives depended on it. My heart broke, I fell in love with both of them all over again, and I turned around and went shopping for the baby shower.

I spent...a lot. A lot of money. Basically everything I earned this weekend went to food and decorations for the shower. I had a list, thank goodness, and was armed only with cash (and managed to stick, at least, to that limitation with minimal embarrassment). I was just...guys, you have no idea how tired I was. How driven, how desperate I am to show Lenore that she's loved and her family will do our best to be good for her and her baby.

I arrived home too tired to anything. Darling unloaded the truck and put away the groceries and I went to bed, passed out, and woke up half an hour later to hear the sound of my sister's voice. She took one look at me and said, "I'm tired and early, let's take a nap before starting." At this stage, my hands were shaking too much to put in my contacts, so I agreed and we both took an hour nap.

Then to cooking and baking. My sister-in-law came and I set her to work cutting up fruit. I baked cookies, then muffins, icing and decorating both. They turned out surprisingly beautiful. I made cucumber and sprout sandwiches. My sister brought the supplies for mimosas. Other guests arrived, and...I guess it was a success. I hope it was a success. I never succumbed to total fatigue, at least. I never had a mimosa, either.

The greatest obstacle wasn't even sleep deprivation. My Mom called at 2:00 pm on the dot and told me a story that would make a normal person's ears bleed. It was bad. Things are bad. So bad. So bad that, when the doorbell rang, I promised to call her bag, hung up the phone, turned to my sister, and said, "we will not tell our brother that phone call just happened. We are not going to discuss this right now, not on your special day." Talk about domestic terrorism. That night I called my Mom back, and although things certainly aren't good on her side of life, it wasn't necessary to ruin the party over it.

Today I didn't even wake up to wish Darling luck on his third job as a lead. I did wake up at nine a.m., amazingly. My mantra today is, "relax, relax, relax." Of course I'm cleaning up after the party today, and catching up on laundry, but my hands are still a little shaky, so mostly it's a total chill day. Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll think about money again in a serious way. Tomorrow I'll head back into the workshop. Tomorrow...but today, I'm going to catch up on my mimosa drinking.

I Was Almost Debt Free

I just made what was, if not the hardest, the least characteristic decision of my life.

I chose not to pay debt.

On the heels of my last post, which still doesn't feel quite right to me, this declaration is especially unsavory. Why do I need to post in the negative? What I should actually post is:

I just bought my first credit union share certificate!!!

Because that's a good thing. Because that sets a savings precedent Darling and I have desperately needed for a goodly long time.

Our inspiration is taxes. Darling is a contract employee for the time being, so, come April, we could theoretically be facing a big bill. That's not necessarily likely, because I've been working all year and always have the maximum taken amount of taxes taken from my paycheck so I get a refund and to guard against this sort of situation. Pair that with our up-to-now poverty, and I doubt that his earning good money for three months of 2013 is going to do much more than reduce our refund check early next year. Since he'll be an official employee by spring of next year, and having the maximum taken out of his taxes (yeah, I'm all about the bad financial habits these past few posts, huh?), I highly doubt we'll risk owing the government any money. Yet it's a fear I choose not to shake, having seen too many people screw up when it comes to federal income taxes.

My final consideration is that unless his employers give him a fairly decent raise upon making him permanent, Darling could possibly face a cut in income once taxes and benefits are being taken out. Hopefully they give him that raise, but I'd rather not get used to spending all my tax-free dollars before that transition.

So for the past six weeks I've been taking 25% out of every paycheck, putting it into a checking account, and...spending it by the next pay period. Because I'm awesome like that. Obviously the savings needed to be somewhere less accessible, and before replenishing them became impossible. Cue a share certificate, the feel-good version of a certificate of deposit.

Besides knowing the majority of this week's check would not be accessible to me, I was fairly happy with this plan until it clicked that Darling's most recent check would be enough to cover the entirety of my remaining debt. Not so with the past two, but this one, the one that would replenish and set our savings out of reach...this one would be just enough to pay off our debt.

Things would have been tight, very tight, for the rest of the month. It's possible rent would have been late, that I'd struggle with my sister's baby shower, that it would be at least another two weeks of coasting into the gas station and emptying my change into the pump. There would be overdrafts, small debts would accumulate that would deny my actual official debt freedom, but nothing that couldn't be met with the first paycheck of next month, nothing that would deny the actual joy of being done with my student loans. Everything Darling and I had agreed to with regards to this month's finances would be null and void. Paying that debt would have been a mistake.

But it would be the last time I'd ever make that mistake again.

For all that, I'd never catch up on savings. I know my nature too well to assume I'll simply catch up by taking 30% of our checks and applying them to savings for the rest of the year. The same extremism that inspires me to apply entire paychecks to debt makes small, regular payments feel nearly agonizing. I have to walk the line. Always 25%, always a certain chunk that amounts to an actual investment ever six months or so, is about as good as it's going to get. A large enough sum that it makes me feel good about myself, but not so large that I can't catch up when my dedication inevitably falters.

I've had savings in the past and felt burned by the experience. My net worth climbed oh-so-high only to plunge when the emergency cropped up that would drain the accounts, leaving me with the number that truly ruled my life: my accumulated debt. Paying debt irrevocably increased my net worth, whereas savings only ever came and went. That's why I stopped almost entirely, even knowing what a bad idea that is. I imagined saving only after I was debt free, and the idea of bringing my net worth into the black with savings rather than actual debt freedom doesn't feel right.

Right now, however, it's savings we need. More so than the debt freedom, perhaps, and certainly more so than another month of total struggle. We'll be able to pay the debt in whole soon - so soon - and then it will be easy, an act of integrity rather than compulsion. The triumph will be complete and total, not sideways and shifty. Maybe my finances are evolving. Maybe they won't be so reactionary and fear-based in the future, but actually controlled, calculated and careful. 

Or maybe I just let the last chance of debt freedom before the end of 2013 slip right through my fingers, net worth not withstanding.

How To Live Without A Budget

Lizzie asked why Darling and I don't simply make and stick with a budget. I've touched on the subject often enough to make it feel redundant, but this feels like a good opportunity to share why I choose not to budget, and offer you the methods of a budget-free, financially-successful life.

There is a single lifestyle element that makes a budget both necessary and successful: Consistency. If you have a consistent income and consistent spending patterns, you pretty much require a budget. That's because you will inevitably develop certain spending habits (lattes, eating lunch out on Fridays, not saving enough) that a budget will keep in check. A budget is a schedule of spending that reminds you where your money should be going, month after month, year after year.

The trick to living without a budget, then, is break any and all patterns and habits and resist forming new ones. Unless you do this naturally, it's not a route I highly recommend. My husband and I shy so assiduously away from routine ourselves that we've had to learn to make this a good thing, though, and you can do the same.

On the most pragmatic level, what I'm talking about is avoiding regular monthly expenses. Darling and I have two: rent and the cell phone bill. And, because we paid the phone bill four months at once, we really only have rent. Rent covers all of our utilities, and in our last home it covered all utilities, phone, and groceries, and in the home before that rent covered everything but groceries. With only one bill a month, a budget isn't terribly necessary so long as you are tracking all expenses, review your monthly tabulations, and feel good about that spending.  What I mean is, Darling and I have agreed to spend $400 a month on groceries while he is working. That's because we know from careful tracking and experience that's enough and we can afford it. I don't have to put money in an envelope to meet this goal, it's very natural.

So, knowing from experience that we're going to spend a certain amount of money on groceries and gas - both of which could be reduced if necessary - and that rent is the only thing that has to be paid every four weeks, Darling and I are able to cope with an income that can be less than $300 one month and over $3,000 another month.

When things are going well (those $3,000 months), we make a list of all the purchases we'd like to make. This can include everything from a big debt payment or investment, cookware, vacation savings, gifts, medical check ups, and upcoming annual payments. All the stuff we couldn't do on the $300 months as well as season specific spending. One of us agrees to go first, and picks our top priority for the month. Often this might be rent, other times it might be a small purchase that has slipped through the cracks month after month and isn't going to hinder our ability to pay rent with the first check of the month. The the second priority is chosen, and so on. Even if rent is priority number 3, we'll pay it when it's due if at all possible. In the meantime, we buy groceries, pay debt, buy gas, and cover other non-negotiable items as need and opportunity dictate.

The benefit? By spending in "chunks" (four months of phone bills at once, an entirely new wardrobe, or even just that wok Darling's been pining for), we can weather the months when paying rent is effectively impossible in relative comfort. We get while the gettings good. Darling and I share our income completely, there is no sense of his or mine when it comes to cash, so this is a good way to keep us on equal footing. It also helps me resist the dangerous urge to pay $1,500 on debt just because we have it...though, truth be told, at least that's a sin I'll only be able to commit once more in my life, and I can't promise to resist it when the chance comes!

November 2013 Net Worth

I was so freaked out last month when I calculated my net worth and it came to less than -$2,000! Considering I'd broken about the negative $1,000 mark in May, it felt like I was falling helplessly down into this deep financial abyss. But there's magic to lacking easy access to credit: our debt can only grow so great, and we have to make up for it so quickly!

So this month my net worth has increased by nearly a thousand dollars. All is well between myself, my bank, and my credit union, I'm not behind on rent, and I was able to pay the annual insurance on the truck I drive and my Mom's car. Relief all around, I can assure you. It's still a bummer to be nearly $400 away from previous highest-net-worth ever, but I don't see any reason I shouldn't claw my way back up there by December.

Darling and I did another priority list for November. This time I suggested that our list only include eight items, four choices each. Last month we prioritized everything we could think of to spend money on, and we only marked six off the list. I wanted to limit our choices because we bounced around a little bit on that list, and I wanted to hold onto that flexibility without losing the sense of, you know, priority, if that makes any sense.

The priority list is important to me because it outlines our spending goals in an egalitarian manner, so I don't feel like a bad guy for saying "no" or being the one to point out our bank account is running on empty, and Darling doesn't feel like his wants and needs are being ignored for forgotten. This is more vital than it has been in a while because he's earning such good money that we're able to meet some needs that have been postponed for a really long time: prescription glasses for work, a bed...that sort of thing. But we can't meet them all at once, and I'm more dedicated than ever to have savings. As God as my witness, we will buy a share certificate this Friday!