My New Years Resolution

I almost decided to post an early net worth, but there's a good chance I'll be in the negative. Fortunately I work tonight, a double on New Years Eve, and that will almost certainly put me over the edge! Here's to starting 2014 in the black!

This year I had a really terrible time catching any sort of traction. I never felt in control of my circumstances in 2013. This wasn't all bad. Darling got a fantastic job, started driving, and added an element of independence to our marriage that I'd never realized we desperately needed. Our living situation, though far from ideal, helped out a friend and provided for more privacy than Darling and I are used to, which was probably also good for our marriage. I partnered in a business, which has had its serious share of ups and downs, teaching me important skills and forcing from me a learned patience I didn't feel capable of. My mantra for most of 2013 was, "this is not about me." It was about my pregnant sister, my aging parents, my husband's career, my friends, my business, my job...This control freak learned more than a little about surrendering these past twelve months.

I never got a grip on what was going on around me. I missed too many birthdays, I was a bystander, at best, to every holiday. I let anxiety and stress overwhelm me. I let my homelessness define me. So my ultimate goal of 2014 is to be present. I won't ask to control, but I do request a sense of preparation. This year I'm arming myself with a calendar and the determination to not let a single event catch me by surprise.

This year I will send out birthday cards, I will purchase gifts in advance, I will respond to invitations with a very clear sense of whether or not I will actually be available. I will eliminate "belated" from my vocabulary. I will approach every holiday not with foreboding but with the joyous anticipation I abandoned in my adolescence.

Not only that, but I will upgrade my holiday expectations from mere survival. For years I have allowed my parents' immaturity to ruin...well, everything. Whether it's my Dad inviting creepy "friends," to the dinner I cook to celebrate my birthday ("I just met him a the bus stop, and he looked like he needed a good meal,") or my Mom getting lost and needing me to come get her ("I'm on a road with no signs and for some reason it's night here...what city do you live in, again?") or my stepmom inviting me to suddenly vital celebrations that start twenty minutes into my shift at work ("what do you mean, you forgot your second cousin's birthday? We're having a barbecue right now and we need you to pick up the brisket!"), I pretty much live in fear of family gatherings. It kind of sucks that the fact of my birthday being only four months away fills me with dread. Not because I hate aging, but because it means any day now my Mom will start asking what "I'm planning," and anything that isn't catered to her will strike her as being completely snubbed. In fact, anything that isn't entirely catered to her, but involves her at all, is so exhausting that last year I just limited my celebration to taking her to the movies.

So this year, somehow, someway, I won't let that happen. I will expect my parents to behave themselves with regards to the holidays, including my birthday, and not blame myself when that is impossible. I will not set myself up to bear the burden of their happiness at the expense of my own. I will not dismiss my wants or needs, I will not be caught unaware and surprised, I will not be defined by guilt.

2014 will be the year I teach myself to celebrate. 

Vulnerable

Baby Bel's entrance into the world ripped me open to extreme vulnerability, and the following two weeks were not adequately gentle. I hadn't pulled out of the hospital parking lot before my Mom called up with some serious crazy to lay down on me. Sleep became the sort of thing I read about in books as R and I worked all hours to build a LOT of product for the last weekend of sales. And then it rained Saturday morning. I got very wet and then sat in the cold in our booth for eight hours, and then I went to work at the diner. By the time I was heading back to our booth the next morning, I had lost my voice. By the time I got home from work that night, having packed up the tent and all the remaining instruments for the last time in 2013, I had a 101 degree temperature.

Throw in some more family drama that breaks my heart and I shouldn't go into, add a dose of what was either my first real-life panic attack or heart attack, and bring to a slow simmering fight between Darling and me that spanned from Christmas Eve to late last night...and you have the second half of December for me. Oh, and money? Don't.mention.money. This is the worse I've been about tracking expenses since 2011.

The clouds didn't lift until Darling hugged me last night and just said, "it doesn't have to hurt," which was somehow exactly what I needed to hear at that precise moment. It doesn't have to hurt. That can be my mantra for right now. Because right now it seems like everything is wrong, and I can't fix anything, but it doesn't have to actually hurt. Not as bad as I've been letting it hurt, at least, and not to the degree that I try and strike out and make others feel as miserable.

Now I have some perspective on life, by which I don't  mean that everything is relatively okay, but by which I mean that I can look at the dozen individual circumstances that make me want to tear my hair out and, well, not tear my hair out. I can accept what I cannot change, as the AA saying goes, and start considering what does need to change.

The New Year provides the perfect stage for such changes, no? More on resolutions soon.

Miracle

Saturday night I helped my sister through the labor and birth of her beautiful baby girl, Bel. I have barely been able to function as a human being since witnessing that miracle. I was in the hospital with her for the twelve hours, at once helpless and vital, witness yet somehow participant. I still feel entirely shattered, still shaky and overwhelmed and vulnerable. I kind of need life to stop for a little bit, let me catch my breath, re-assemble my now variegated pieces into some reproduction of who I used to be. Or I need to watch, like, 200 hours of Dr. Who and coagulate back into something human-shaped.

What I don't need is hysterical, accusatory phone calls from my Mother, a lease drawing to a close, hungry cats to feed, a Christmas bazaar this weekend, $700 worth of product to build, a shift waiting tables tomorrow night, a sick husband, a full trash bin, an empty gas tank, and less than twenty-six cents in the checking account.

But that's what I have to work with. 'Tis The Season to just keep moving.

Specialization Vs. Competency

Lizzie wonders why I should waste my time with truck repair, time that might be better spent with my business. Mechanics is messy and involved, after all, and paying someone to do the most basic work is relatively affordable.

I was writing another post when the truest answer made itself available to me: I find mechanics a great deal of fun. I had a fantastic time playing under the hood last Sunday, and was not the least bit surprised to find myself looking forward to a more in-depth look at my engine.

So much as I've always resisted car-culture, the engineering aspect is fantastically interesting to me. I like building. I like to know how things come together and pull apart. The same basic principles can be found in almost everything I enjoy, from baking to woodworking.

Most important, I like the feeling of competency that comes from understanding these systems. I have a great deal of respect for people who can look under the hood and know what they're seeing. I know that helping to replace my own tires and possibly repair my own brakes in a couple of weeks won't make me a master engineer, but I also understand that it will greatly enhance my understanding of the machine I've bet my livelihood on. This is one of those points where the line between frugality and sustainability blur. I feel that learning basic mechanics will empower me to get the absolute most out of this engine and each of its components. Even as I spend more money on oil, high quality filters, and recommended fluids, I will extend the life of the each piece to the degree that it will pay for itself. At the very least, I will know enough to protect myself from unethical treatment in the future. If someone tells me my brake pads are dangerously worn, I will be able to see for myself if that is the case. I can prevent dry rot in my tires in the future with basic maintenance I'd never before heard of. I won't come dangerously close to running out of coolant again.

Culturally speaking, Americans are told that to develop a passion is to pursue a career. If I really want to understand engines, I should be a mechanic. Otherwise I'm wasting time. I have been told I should be a professional baker, a farmer, and (believe it or not) a candlestick maker. The things is, a professional carpenter has a hard time finding time to work on cars, and a professional baker needs to sleep when the seedlings are best watered. There is a lot to be said for specialization, but I crave a general competency. That's one of the reasons I've explored so many careers, and ultimately what brings me back to waiting tables time and time again, the one job that offers me the flexibility to explore all of my passions!

The Gift of Forgiveness

I always harbor a certain degree of guilt this time a year. The holiday season is barely underway, but already I know that not everyone on my list is going to get gifts, handmade, baked, or otherwise. At best, there will be a card. High hopes dash, year after year, against a reality that seems to me much more miserly than frugal. It's not helped that, as a waitress, money is always scarce this time of year. It's not helped by the fact that my crafts business may pay out, but couldn't come close to really paying for itself. And never mind the weather forcing Darling inside so that he can't quite take advantage of his own profession.

For years now I have tracked my income and expenses, tabulated the results and - come the months of November and December - come up short. I find myself wondering about this yearly attempt at frugality, this annual downfall, and whether or not a little credit or one of those holiday loans really would be the end of the world.

This year, however, something clicked. Somewhere between calculating my tabulations for November and writing up the priority list for December, I understood what financial integrity really means.

Darling and I, as well as everyone else on the entire planet, have limited resources. Everyone's limit is different, and that fluctuates for most of us month by month. But the fact is, we can't do everything for everyone all the time.

The point of my tabulations is to really pinpoint what Enough means to Darling and me, and to feel completely confident in our understanding of what we actually have vs. what we perceive. Most important, at least to me at this point, my tabulations reveal how much I have to give, and the consequences of over-stepping that line.

Suddenly, I'm not being selfishly frugal or overly miserly. I'm paying my bills. Any money I set aside - if I do manage to set anything aside this month -  is not taking away from my nieces, nephews, or God children. Any money set aside is done so in recognition that, holidays or otherwise, the truck tires have dry rot and we need the deposit for a new apartment ASAP.

Which doesn't mean I'm not going to get everyone gifts. It means I'm not going to feel guilty for not getting everyone under ten a new tricycle. There's an important difference there.

This is a valuable epiphany even outside of the holidays. Year after year, month after month, I find myself setting absurdly high and often contradictory goals. I want to aim high, but I'm over the guilt and remorse cultivated over years of failure. I finally have enough data to feel totally confident that going back to college, achieving debt freedom, purchasing personal health insurance, and saving tens of thousands of dollars while working part-time just isn't possible, and hasn't been possible, under any of my personal circumstances. I finally have a good idea of what it means to set achievable goals.

Car Maintenance 101: My Journey Begins

"Opinion must become conviction before it has any potency to change the ordering of life. I saw plainly that I must either bring my thoughts to the point of conviction or discard them altogether." 

 -W.J. (William James) Dawson  

Or, as I told myself early yesterday, "less talking, more walking."

I've experienced a long, hard struggle regarding vehicle ownership. Despite myself, my husband and I are in the charge of a Toyota Tundra we call Bertha. After years of self-hate and resentment for my dependent relationship with Bertha, she has only recently endeared herself for me for her amazing influence on my marriage.

Darling has had a license for many years, but did not really drive. That was my fault, because I'm over-controlling, a trait that does not seem to be dispersing with age. To be fair, though, he really didn't want to drive or feel comfortable at all behind the wheel. So we were both nursing unhealthy tendencies via our attitudes toward driving.

Those behaviors were - and are - mirrored in every aspect of our lives. So when the day came that Darling absolutely had to drive in order to move forward with his career, whether either of us liked it or not, the shifts affected EVERYTHING. It introduced a new balance, a better balance, a harder balance.

I've been going on and on about priority lists because they solidly represent the new, stronger partnership Darling and I have been enjoying. My husband has contributed income for years, and has contributed more in the past than he does today, but these days it's so much more than money. Driving the truck every day forced him to step up, forced me to step down, and it's just been better.

Which means I have to stop looking at Bertha as the representation of all that is wrong and evil with the world and start treating her like the tool that she is: a hugely complex and valuable piece of machinery. The mechanics of which I am almost entirely ignorant. The ignorance of which could cost me way more than gas ever will.

If I'm going to be a driver, I want to be fully competent. I want to open the hood and know what I'm looking at, I want to fix problems before they manifest. If I'm going to own this truck, I want it to live as long as I do. I want to take it to a mechanic without the fear of being ripped off. Which might be a kind of tall order for someone who, until yesterday, thought that V6 was a vegetable drink. I decided to start with changing my own oil.

I didn't feel comfortable learning this from Youtube, and I didn't want to ask a friend who might end up doing the entire process for me. I have a real challenge retaining information. I pretty much literally have to do something to learn it. I have to twist the dials, work the tools, whatever, or it will not stay in my head.

Austin is the greatest city in the world. I found exactly what I needed a half-hour drive from my home. DIY Texas is a fully functional garage with any and all tools available to layman or professional alike. It's stupidly affordable to rent the space and fully-stocked toolbox, a small up charge for verbal assistance, and for a little more you can have a mechanic's undivided attention and instruction in your project.

I am in love. My new BFF, J, showed me how to raise my truck on that awesome platform thing and walk under it to empty the oil tank, then inspect my wheels, brakes, suspension, and transmission. He showed me the dry rot that will eventually lead to a blow out on the tires, the wearing on my brake pads, and gave me such a detailed explanation of how I'll deal with my transmission that I almost feel like I could go in and do it without help in a few weeks. J told me where to get the best price on new tires and said I can have them delivered directly to the garage, where they'll change them out for a standard flat rate or talk me through the process for an hourly fee.

I can't exaggerate how competent and empowered this all made me feel. I now understand why a $20, 10-minute oil change is not frugal. I understand why changing my own oil will actually cost me more money from now on, as I will no longer be opting for the cheapest possible products to be used in the truck. I went ahead and bought the oil and filter for the next change because they were on sale at Autozone. The excitement of going back and learning more almost balances out the fact that I need new tires ASAP. Almost.

I'll think about that $1,000 bomb later. In the meantime, I'm going to work out how other purchases on my priority list invite new learning opportunities.

Revolving Resolutions

Darling and I took a couple of days off during the middle of the week to celebrate our 9th anniversary. We rented a cabin on the river just north of our house and spent our time...well, anyway, we enjoyed ourselves :)

I worked Thursday evening and turned that money directly into groceries on Friday evening. Darling and I talked priorities and came up with a rather unexciting list. I made a payment that knocked our debt to less than a thousand dollars, and will probably make at least one more payment before 2014, but we won't be totally decimating it by the new year. There's just too much going on, particularly with the apartment-hunting and our diminished income due to holidays and bad weather. I don't even think that savings are going to happen this month. Not because I don't think saving is important, but because I'm trying to be more realistic honest with myself about what Darling and I can do with what we have. As matters stand, we have enough money to cover rent and our basics and the deposit on an apartment. And not a lot else, which will be an issue when it comes to paying rent next month. We probably can't afford any deposit including first and/or last month's rent, which is pretty common hereabouts.

To be honest, we could (and might) wait until February to move. I don't want to, and Darling doesn't want to. But we're not going to be kicked out into the street if we don't have a place on January first. So we're operating on the assumption that we'll move as early as possible without letting our net worth slip back into the red. Seems like a fair enough goal, right?

Speaking of goals, I'm brainstorming New Years Resolutions. For inspiration I'm asking myself "What would make 2014 absolutely rock more than any other year before?" Here are some ideas:

- College Classes. I can't decide on an area of study in particular, but my current fantasy is to take the ACC 36-hour woodworking curriculum. How cool would it be to really know my way around a cabinetry shop?

- Give up waiting tables to support myself crafting

- A Monthly DIY project. One building project completed a month, maybe? Or knitting, or anything handmade? Hmmm...

- A service project. Of some sort, any sort.

- Something to get me moving again. Yoga classes, maybe? I miss capoeira.

- Meet my Six-months savings goal.

The End of Fear-Based Finances

As I was writing yesterday's post, I repeatedly considered the possibility that Darling and I might have a negative net worth next month because we need to move in January. In order to move in January we need to have a deposit saved and first month's rent available on or near the first. Pair that with paying December rent, and all of our employment issues around the holidays, and there's the small chance that not only will we not pay all (or any) of my remaining debt before 2014, but we might have to access the savings we've put away that resulted in our positive net worth in the first place!

Cue finding The Perfect house on craigslist last night, responding to it quickly, and having an immediate e-mail conversation with the landlord. Most of it all hinging on the theory that I could give him the $800 deposit today at 4:00. Bah. The only possible way to meet that goal would be to cash out my savings, as feared, and be prepared to pay this month's rent (very) late (again). Even accepting late rent, the rest of the month - and holiday season - would be under strict austerity rule so as to have January rent on the first. And there would still be a good chance of facing an overdraft on our account if we weren't super careful with all the timing.

In the past, I'd just roll right ahead with that, knowing that everything would work out one way or another. I'd roll from crisis to crisis that way, always jamming too many big goals together, working long hours to make everything work, and never being able to really enjoy the fruits of my labor. "Someday..." I'd lie to myself, "someday everything will settle down."

Well, someday comes today. The fact is, we don't have $800 in the checking account, so we'll just have to pass on that particular dream house. The money in savings was put there for a more meaningful goal, and most of all as a promise of security, a promise I don't mean to continuously deny myself. When Darling gets paid, we'll be writing that rent check and then following through with the priority list as my husband and I agree. We'll follow through with our moderate savings and debt payment goals.

As with the choice to buy my share certificate rather than pay the last of my debt, this decision is equally comforting and scary. So much of our progress these past several years was driven by my impulsive and obstinate nature. Will a calmer, more steadfast approach to money management dull my luck and hinder my ability to take advantage of good opportunities before they slip away?

It doesn't take a genius to acknowledge that big goals take long-term thinking...but this is just going to require new behavior from me. I've always operated on the theory that if I leap, a net will appear. And that's been true. But it's a scary way to live, and Darling and I are getting older, and time to complete The Challenge is ever dwindling.

So. No more Craigslist for me. Not until I've got an adequate sum in the checking account, at least.

December 2013: The Positive Net Worth

Today my net worth is $205.71.

I've publicly tracked my net worth, penny by penny, for over six years now. In that time I have clawed my way out of a $16,000+ hole. I have earned good and easy money, I have gone unemployed for months at a time, I have taken college courses, embarked on new careers, worked countless small gigs, learned dozens of little skills, shared my home, lived in a tent, depended on the kindness of friends and strangers and even the Catholic Church. I've met people whose radically sustainable lifestyles make my own humble goals look like a joke. I've studied permaculture and totally failed to apply it to my own life. I've waited tables in the country and worked on farms in the country. I've eaten well out of dumpsters, sustained my vices, visited Paris and and England and Wales, and purchased exactly one tattoo.

Sharing my negative net worth, using real numbers, was a matter of honor and honesty. Tracking a positive net worth strikes me as churlish. So I'm not gonna do it. Unless for some reason my net worth dips below $0 in the next month, I'll be removing the Net Worth Weigh in from my sidebar. And replacing it with something else, most likely a measurement in percentages of how far I am from my next goal, the Six Months Savings.

I've got a lot going on for the rest of 2014, so it's pretty hard for me to make an honest estimation of where Darling and I might find ourselves, financially speaking, on January 1st. Darling's missed enough work due to bad weather and holidays that we might face a pretty substantial dip in his income. At the same time, I should bring home a reasonable chunk of change from my side business soon after Christmas. We've agreed time and time again to pay off the last of our debt with one of his next two checks, but we need to catch up on our savings, purchase gifts, and save money to move in January. We'll be starting the New Year with a three paycheck month, followed up shortly with some sort of tax refund, and I'll probably be able to double my own income as a waitress once the holiday craft mania has passed, so I'm not too worried about making fast progress then, we just have to get through one last hiccupy sort of month.