Moving Along

Not much in my life stays the same for very long, it seems, and blogging has felt almost like a retrogressive process because, the moment I publish a post, my best-laid plans have shifted tangentially off-center and I find myself heading in a completely different direction altogether!

R and I are still in business. I'll consider it a serious business after our first sell, which we've been putting off for the sake of accumulating inventory for our first fair. By the end of this month we intend to have about $2,500 worth of product. That's product, not profit, but I still like the look of our numbers. Thank God for our League of Investors, who have so far covered much of our tool and material expenses. It's amazing to have friends who really believe in me. It kind of takes away my right to not believe in myself.

I let myself hate my job a little more every day. It's still a non-profit, still the closest thing to doing no harm than I've ever gotten paid for, and still in the service industry, which I'm good at. The problem is that my position forces me to say "no" to people who would like to take advantage of me and my workplace. In fact, I have to sorely disappoint a shocking number of people who feel completely entitled to totally screw me and my employer. I actually miss waiting tables, where my job is to say "yes," and maybe commiserate on the rare occasion that my "yes" isn't magical enough to make everyone's dreams come true. I hate saying "no." I hate having to judge people, too. Because so many people are given the opportunity to endanger my workplace, I have to recognize those risks the moment they walk through the door and guard myself accordingly. Having dispelled what little romantic idealism I ever had in Detroit, the once soft-edges of my accepting and forgiving nature are growing ever sharper, ever more cynical. The time to step out of this environment is long overdue! Just seven more days, and it's just me and R and the shop!

In the meantime, Darling has a side job and has agreed to pay rent on the apartment we're hunting for. We've fallen in love with a particular neighborhood. It's a series of quiet cul de sacs located behind a grocery store, next to a comic store, across the street from a fantastically beautiful park, on a particularly useful bus route and along a great bike path. It's a twenty minute bike ride from the workshop, and close enough to central Austin to get decent work. Yet it's far enough south that rents are extremely reasonable. I can get a two-bedroom apartment here for the same price a studio goes for in my old neighborhood. One unit will be available in May and another in June. So the current Big Scary Question is do we move in two weeks, which feels way too soon, or in six weeks, which feels far too distant? If we go for the May deadline, we basically need the deposit this week. And then we will need rent in two more weeks. Which is insane. But I haven't had an insane short-term money goal in a while, and I really miss my privacy...

Coming Soon:
*  Will we make any money at my first craft show? Will we be a hit? Or laughed out of town? Will I have to get another job to survive, continuing my never-ending journey towards total burn-out, or is self-employment an actual possibility?
* Will Darling and I move into an apartment just weeks after leaving my full-time job/sole source of income? Are we really that stupid? What on earth will we do with two bedrooms and next to no possessions?
* Will we find a decent dumpster from which we can stock our refrigerator? Work part-time at a farm? How will we meet our needs on a part-time job and a fledgling crafts company?
Stay Tuned!

First TAB!

Woot! I finally produced my first "tab!" The first I'm really happy with, at least. It's entitled Sustainable Food and provides a somewhat brief introduction to saving money, reducing environmental impact, and empowering your community via your grocery choices. Included in the text are links to articles that explore some concepts in more detail (many of those links will be familiar to current readers). I'll be fleshing it out over the coming weeks with articles on starting seedling and saving seeds, lots more recipes, my long-promised and many-times aborted post on vegetarianism, and articles on the benefits of working in food service.

Most importantly, the page includes PICTURES. Including one of my two girls, Ruby and Blondie. That's worth a gander right there <3

Tenets of Subversive Sustainability

1. To pursue personal and cultural empowerment and freedom by means of personal improvement and development.

2. To support those institutions, products, and individual choices which sustain humanity, our planet, and its inhabitants.

3. To end our dependency on those institutions, products, and individual choices which lead to exploitation, destruction of natural resources, and unsustainable expectations.

Subversive Sustainability

Ours is a consumer culture.

To consume is to destroy or use up. Therefore, we are a people of destruction. To this end we wage wars, shape economies, and educate our young. All species consume to live, but many of us live to consume. We work, work, work, buy, buy, buy, and then leave the planet significantly less capable of handling the next wave of industrialized people.

To subvert is also to destroy, but institutions, standards, and status quo are the victims. To consume an old growth forest is acceptable, to subvert Wall Street would be criminal. That's what we humans have to work with. We live in exciting times.

Sustainability is the opposite of consumption and subversion, but I believe that the pursuit of sustainability, in this day and age, is ultimately a subversive act. If we were all to roll out of bed tomorrow and say, "that's it, to Hell with the oil industry, I'm riding my bike or staying home," the world as we know it would effectively end. And I'm not dumb enough to expect that to be a clean revolution, or even a desirable revolution.

As individuals, however, we can roll out of bed and say, "today, I will not destroy." Very rarely will that result in limiting the choice of another, until so many individuals choose sustainability over consumption that the current market system folds under its own weight. Naturally there will be folks who prefer the current system, but that's the price of progress, and they have plenty of time and resources to fight the good fight.

Understand that much of modern consumption is a matter of dependence, whereas sustainability is independence. Go to the store and buy a bag of potato chips, and you are dependent on dozens of systems - not only the producers and transporters of the chips, but the employers who provide the income necessary to make such a purchase. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Plant a potato, though, and you find the sustainability: one potato produces many, each capable of producing exponentially more potatoes. There is no better bargain: food begets food. No one can fire you from your garden.

The pursuit of sustainability is both subversive and empowering. Knitting, building, repairing, cooking, baking, walking, sewing, sharing, writing, reading, and teaching are all activities that can take place outside the capitalist model. Take this path and you will find that beauty trumps fashion, meaningful work beats exhaustive paper-shuffling, friendship is more valuable than networking.

Creation is  preferable to destruction.

The Plan

The Plan

 1. Save Six Months' Worth of Expenses

I am toying with the idea of making this a mini-challenge and calling it "Six-Months in Six Months." Because both my earning and spending have fluctuated so violently over the past years, I will consider the average spending of the past twelve months to be the target monthly expense. I plan track the percentage saved rather than the actual dollar amount so as to equally acknowledge a reduction in spending as increase in cash flow.

Why not create a bare-bones budget and save that six times over? I don't find bare-bones budgets to be very realistic. Although working is very expensive, job hunting can be even more so. What emergency is going to be so affordable that Darling and I can feel good scraping by for a while? No, I'd rather have six months of savings that can really cover the costs of birthdays, doctor appointments, travel and commuting.

2. Purchase Property

Capricia correctly guessed that this would be a priority, but I didn't. Darling totally surprised me with his request just a few weeks ago. We've always wanted a place, not necessarily a permanent home but a forever getaway: somewhere to park when travel gets interminable, somewhere to escape when friends and family get overbearing, somewhere to flee when the apocalypse dawns. I didn't realize how close we were to achieving this dream until he pointed to our money tracking chart, "what better way do we spend that money when the debt is gone?"

Saving for six months should give us a really solid idea of how much we can afford to set aside for a piece of land and a yurt (or whatever) to park on it. I'm not committing to a purchase date just yet, but since this pursuit will obviously take a great deal of time and will give me the opportunity to experiment with the safest and most dependable saving and short-term investment vehicles for my money.

3. Invest

By the time we have saved $60,000 or so for a few acres, some nails, and solar panels to build a sustainable little homestead, we will have put ourselves in the prime position to bring our expenses to a realistic bare minimum while investing in whatever we find to be the most reliable and socially appropriate source of passive income. The good news is that if Darling and I play our cards right, we will need very little return on our investment and can weather the low-to-no interest rates currently plaguing the bond market. Money will probably be our least notable investment in The Challenge as a whole: the real payback will come from the skills, habits, and relationships we've developed and will continue to nurture for the next fifteen years.

Next Phase of The Challenge

As I fast approach the verge of debt freedom, the time has come to contemplate the next big phase of my plan: Saving.

This might seem like a strange "next" step. After all, paying off our $20,000+ debt meant living well below our means for the past seven years. Maybe Darling and I weren't Tightwad-Gazette-Frugal, but we've had our moments. Why should saving be such a big deal?

Not many folks would argue the wisdom of paying debt, but from here on out, the answers won't be so easy. We will not be researching mortgages or car loans. We will never bring our business plans to the bank or credit union to discuss financing. Our education, and the education of our children, will not cost us 5.250% more over the course of fifteen years. Every big purchase will be a matter of very careful thought, preparation, research, and basically every other human skill that I terribly lack.

The good news? My husband and I will spend significantly less money on these purchases over the course of our lifetime simply by avoiding interest rates and fees. This will make retirement radically easier and drastically reduce our time spent in the traditional workforce.

The bad news? There is a reason people choose to spend 20% more over a prolonged period of time rather than accrue $150,000 in the bank with which to purchase a home. I will be steering The Challenge away from the common consensus of what is correct and intelligent. Which means people who are more educated than me will be able to make good arguments for why my financial choices are misguided.

With that in mind, I decided to write a series of essays devoted to the best financial lifestyle choices I've made. Most of them are fairly radical. The give-up-your-daily-latte card has been done. I want to make some original - and yes, controversial - suggestions. I launched already with Part One: Share a Home. Other topics I plan to cover:

* Become a Vegetarian
* Kill Your Television
* Don't Buy New

Don't despair, this preaching is only to rev me up for the next set of blogs in which I transition from how I done good to how I've fallen off various wagons. For example, I'd love to post on how great it is not to own a car. But who's driving a big ol' truck in and out of town every day for the foreseeable future? This girl. Who gave up soda for over two years just to dive right back into a daily habit? Who loved being shampoo-free...for roughly six months? Who spends as much as $30 in a single month on library fees (with the help of her husband)? I'll spend a couple of months getting back on board with some good habits I let fall tot he wayside.

Eventually I'll work my way up to finding new and exciting ways to reduce spending. Or evolve into a higher, perfect life-form to merge with nirvana. Or fall off six new wagons. Time will tell :)

How Does It Feel?

Thanks so much for all the kudos and kind thoughts from my last post! I can't believe this debt issue is finally winding up :)

Not only did my net worth spike, but last month I also spent significantly less than I earned (thanks to those swings and roundabouts I've mentioned). So my wall chart is also looking fantastic.

But how does it feel? I feel...tired, sweaty, and very reluctant to start dinner. I wish I could rewind to last weekend (great live music, dinners with friends, and visits with family) or fast forward to next weekend (my Easter birthday lunch). I'm ready to transition from counting down the paychecks 'till debt freedom to counting down the weeks 'till I can retire from traditional employment altogether.

My Spending Choices

The lovely Lost Goat recently commented on the fact that we spent more than we earned in the past few weekly reviews (and wouldn't you know it - I'm behind again!).

It's all swings and roundabouts, as my British husband would say. Some months we earn significantly more than other months. Our spending remains consistently very high, because anything "extra" goes to debt. We're basically spending every penny we earn (with 50% going to debt), though not necessarily on the same week we earn it - if that makes any sense. Don't worry, we're not fostering any secret lines of credit or over-drafting with the bank.

Right now I'm looking at my spending with a very sharp, and extremely forgiving, eye. Chalk it up to raking in more cash than ever before, and working more hours than I ever imagined, but I'm being lenient with myself. Not negligent, but definitely lenient.

This is how I dole out my cash every week. I'm not saying it's the right way, or even a very good way, but it's just where I'm at right now:

Darling and I both get paid on Friday. He receives sporadic per diem checks, I get the occasional bonus for dog-sitting or such, we both make over-time sometimes, and we both miss a day of work here and there.

I reserve some cash to buy a couple of sandwiches with on Monday; when our commute crashes into an evening meeting that leaves us delirious with exhaustion and potentially grumpy with hunger, for Darling's $5 daily carpool contribution, and for extra lunch supplies and snacks. We started buying extra groceries specifically for lunchboxes because making a meal at 4:30 in the morning that will sustain us for twelve hours has been a challenge. I also fill the truck with gas.

I mentally add up the cost of those purchases (roughly $150, most of which is gas), include some sort of cushion (probably another hundred dollars), and transfer the rest to debt. The first or last week of every month, of course, I allow for the rent payment as well. 

Like I said, the system is lenient. That weekly cushion covers everything from phone bills to doctor appointments, from sodas at work to a day at the strawberry farm. The only rule I try and abide by is that 50% of our total spending is on debt.

The biggest (only?) problem I have with this slipshod system is my recent graduation to Step Six of Your Money or Your Life, which can roughly be described as Spend Less Money. The book has over a hundred suggestions on this matter, but no real specific way of knowing whether or not I've completed the task.

Naturally, the task isn't meant to be accomplished and forgotten, but to introduce a new style of living...but I like goals, start points, and end points (says the person who took fourteen months to make a simple line-graph). Also, it would just be too easy to say, "eh, I'm frugal. Next?"

So I'm contemplating a mini-challenge, maybe a year-long endeavor to correlate with Year Six of the blog, in which I would set various saving goals. The intention would not be to stash away a certain amount of cash, which would not be an accurate measurement of cost-cutting as my income fluctuates so much. The intention would be to develop and practice certain skills, habits, and patterns that would reduce my consumption regardless of income.

This will be especially beneficial for Year Six because it will be the first one not affected by my debt - my spending will actually drop, because "savings" won't immediately be transferred to debt servicing. It will also force me to consciously deal with having so much extra money surging into my bank account.

Potential goals to meet this end might include learning repairs, finding ways to lower the co-op's overall budget (and therefore my rent), and learning to balance full-time work with sustainable choices without giving up union carpentry - which will come in handy for Step Seven: Maximizing Income.

Financial Evolution

In the early days of this blog I very much wanted to create a clear and concise plan by which to measure my progress. The problem was that I didn't actually know how to achieve the goals of the challenge. There were the obvious ideas of achieving debt freedom, saving a massive emergency fund, and learning to invest successfully...but those don't fall into as tidy a timeline as one might hope. Also, I would be taking for granted my ability to gauge the correct time, place, and style of those pursuits.

Foresight being 20/20, it's much easier to look back on the first five years or so and see the specific phases of financial awakening that have already taken place. I can't say that anyone else might directly benefit from my own evolution of thought, but maybe some of you can relate?

Phase One: Poverty

I believe that the beneficial beginning of this phase was soon after my marriage, just as I left college to work full-time. College offered the benefit of a safety net: there might not have always been money, but there was food and beer.

Darling and I learned what it meant to seriously have no money. I'll never forget the fight that erupted one afternoon as I was counting out pennies in a desperate attempt to make rent appear, and Darling suddenly revealed that he had seventy-five cent stashed away! It was the angriest I've ever been!

Over time, however, we pinched pennies to make ends meet, and it was satisfying. We had rent, electricity, hot water, phone service, and could have friends over (sitting on cushions on the floor of our studio). This is when I started to learn to bake, discovered shopping in bulk, developed a network of friends willing to loan me their cars, and started working on farms for food. We could not pay or debt or buy anything at all. Thrift stores were out of my price range. So I also learned how not to shop, how easy it is not to spend money if you don't go into stores. I also learned that it is okay to let other people take advantage of  the beautiful, one-of-a-kind great deals I occasionally ran into.

Phase Two: Scraping By

About a year into our marriage, Darling as able to get a job and we both learned to take on weekend gigs. One Friday I worked a shift at a coffee shop, from which I was picked up to do a couple of hours modeling, and was dropped off at the kitchen of the caterer I worked for. I was literally working from six in the morning one day until five in the morning the next day, and I had to borrow a pair of black shoes for the catering because it never even occurred to me to buy a pair.

This is when we started paying debt and saving. Having pinpointed exactly how much it cost for us to live, we knew that every extra penny could be set aside. Despite having a pitifully small total income, we saved enough money to take a road trip to Texas for my birthday, and ended up deciding to move there ten months later.

We took the frugality with us and arrived at my brother's house in 2007 by train and carrying the bulk of our worldly possessions. We had no doubt that the $2,000 in our pockets would be enough to get us by until we had an apartment and jobs. We purchased several pounds of rice and dry beans to eat for every meal, used the library for job resources, and spent days walking the streets looking for work. We found jobs in the nick of time but maintained our extremely thrifty lifestyle for some time later. That's about the time I started this blog.

Phase Three: Upgrading

After living in Texas for a while, our priorities began to shift. After years of not doing much at all, followed by the unexpected high of being able to move to my favorite city, I began to see our savings account as an opportunity for travel and adventure.

The next several years saw us traveling to and from England and Virginia and one weekend on the beach. The funny thing is, nothing else about our lifestyle really changed. Darling and I rarely ate out or shopped, I was still working like crazy, and our closets and pantry were still consistently bare. The first two phases taught us how not to purchase ANYTHING, and how to earn a good deal of money, but - besides paying debt and savings - we didn't know what to do besides fulfill our love of travel.

The obvious exception, of course, is that Darling started going to Austin Community College. So did I, after a fashion. But this was a choice of luxury that we embraced while still not meeting our actual needs.

Over time, however, I got tired of saving a big pile of money and spending it in a few weeks, coming home to an overdraft bank balance and working another thirty days straight. I also got tired of my hurting teeth, sore feet, dirty clothes, and rough appearance. I was tired of furiously treading water and earning good money at a crappy job.

Moving to the co-op provided desperately needed stability to our lives: there was always food in the kitchen, our monthly living expenses were constant, and we were surrounded by responsible, healthy people. I quit my better paying job and began to experiment with alternative styles of employment at this point: working part-time, low-wage and low-responsibility positions, house-cleaning gigs, and even months of unemployment. My focus turned to not having to work, working in nontraditional positions, and focusing on my life at home.

Phase 4: Catching Up

Frugality is not the be all and end all when you don't have a halfway decent pair of jeans for work, your glasses are six years old, and you are losing teeth for lack of timely care. Working shorter hours gave me time to notice how little we had in terms of security and health. So I dedicated about a year to finding sources of care available to low-income individuals.

I also stumbled upon opportunities for job training that made college look like a total scam. Darling left ACC, where he had been studying for nearly four years, and attended a free accreditation program in the same field. Within months he had his first solar job and has been working ever since.

I've begun to see that we can't truly get ahead until we reach a certain state of preparedness. Until my husband and I are healthy, appropriately dressed, and reasonably capable of confidently dealing with the financial demands of our daily lives, neither frugality nor well-paying jobs are going to provide for an ideal lifestyle.

So right now, we are investing a lot of money in the tools of our trade, quite a bit of time in career training, and as much money towards health as we once dedicated to debt. Travel is something we will do "when we can afford it," whereas an adequate wardrobe is a priority. Of course, paying debt continues to be our most favorite hobby!

Someday I might boil this down to a 10-Steps-To-Financial-Freedom list. But everyone's experience is going to be different. Hardcore poverty for someone else is going to be very different from my studio apartment scenario, and "catching up" is a very personal hiccup. There may even be quite a few people who never see their finances in this light of upgrading values and downshifting lifestyles, some of you might simply find it easier to spend less while earning more.

How does your financial evolution differ? Do any of my phases feel familiar?

Tabs!

I finally, finally figured out how to put tabs on my blog! I've been super-jealous of all the other blogs with their fancy multiple pages and driving myself mad trying to get some of my own.

Now, naturally, I have no idea what tabs to create. I've been in love with the look, not the function.

After five years of free-form composition and close to a thousand posts, this blog is getting a little unwieldy. I recently went through the very time-consuming process of editing my 27 labels...and I'm still not incredibly happy with them. It seems reasonable to have five pages folks can access to get the meat of my story, philosophy, and processes.

...Come to think about it, those might be my first three pages right there.

Catching Up and Making Plans

Yesterday I finally fixed my adopted bike. It really only needed a couple of adjustments: a lowered seat and new pedals. I gave it a good test ride to and from  the library and, besides having no idea how the gear system works, I feel comfortable enough to ride it home tonight.

In order to assuage my friends' concerns about my riding eight miles from work, I walked home one evening last week to get the best possible feel of the route. It took me a little more than three hours, mostly because I got turned around at one point and added at least half an hour to my trip. Although it's not a walk I'd like to take again, it was not, as many of my coworkers insisted, "impossible." And if I can enjoy a trip on foot, taking it on a bike will be a breeze and a half.

Last night I baked chocolate oatmeal cookies and Darling and I had a very good talk about money, employment, capitalism, spending, and so on. At first he was a little alarmed at the thought of embarking on an extended consumer strike. During his break from ACC, he enrolled in a state-funded training program for NABCEP practitioners hosted by the local electricians union. We've long considered shifting his renewable energy studies into a career in electrical work, but he was hesitant to commit to a five year apprenticeship program. Hanging out at the union and getting to know instructors, contractors, and novices has finally compelled him to apply for a spot in the full program. Nothing is guaranteed, but upon acceptance he would qualify for wages and benefits that would totally change our financial reality. We'd finally be able to afford darn near anything we want! And, as a vegetarian living in a cooperative who rides his bike to and from the offices in the heat of the Texas Summer, Darling really, really did not want to hurt his small chance of fitting in with the hyper-traditional masculine crowd he'd be working with. So...not spending money? Pretty much the opposite of what my husband was looking forward to in the next ten months.

After explaining my theory and what I hope to accomplish, however, Darling got the point. The goal would not be to sacrifice needs or forgo wants, but cultivate a system of satisfying both needs and wants outside the capitalist system. I know that might sound ridiculous/impossible, and I'll go deeper into the details over time, but it is a worthwhile experiment. After lengthy debate, we agreed that it needs to be long term, but with scheduled periods for review. Due to the nature of the project we won't arrange for a gearing up period, as we had with early no-spend months. We'll start July 1st for ease of scheduling, even though we won't have any money for one last meal at a restaurant or trip to Goodwill. He is still going to get his $30+ worth of computer supplies he's been requesting for his birthday, but otherwise we don't expect to make many exceptions. Our first review period will be three months from the start, October, so we can make needed adjustments to our philosophy before the holidays.

I intend to spend the next nine days practicing and developing an awareness of what makes me want to spend, and how such desires can be met without buying.

A Challenging Challenge

A funny thing happened on my way to...uh, the blog.

Yesterday I wrote a post entitled "I May Not Be A Dreamer" to explain that while, technically, I could embark on a really interesting challenge, I wasn't gonna. My very good excuse is that all my time, energy, and excess cash should go towards my dental health. The latter point remains. I will be going to a dentist and having my teeth fixed in the next six months, come Hell or high water. That said, writing my "non-dreamer" post evoked a strange internal response.

My thoughts drifted into strange and unusual places. What would it actually be like to go ten months without spending money? What if my intention wasn't to develop my frugality, but to step away from the capitalist process altogether? This blog has always been about abstaining from credit, which I imagined depended on proper money management. But, in looking at my progress so far, it is life management that has done me the most good. Living somewhere I don't need a car, sharing my daily expenses with eight other people, buying second hand, borrowing, and sharing have not only reaped substantial savings, but yielded deep bonds and an unexpectedly rewarding lifestyle. Why wouldn't I take this a step further?

What would it mean to cross the line between frugality and freeganism? Not straight up dumpster diving, per se, but a voluntary restriction from general spending? What if when someone asked me to go to lunch, I responded, of my own free will, "No thanks, I don't spend money," the way, as a vegetarian invited to a barbecue, I respond, "No thanks, I don't eat meat."

How would that change my life, myself, and the people around me? How would it influence my marriage and my family relations? Without money as a bridge, could I reach my Mom and Dad? Without the excuse of poverty, could I handle the guilt of holiday gluttony, or lack thereof? Where would I find a place in this city, where one is defined by her favorite bar and trailer taco, if I did not indulge so? How would I prove my worth as a person without expensive gifts and casual, pricey generosity? How would I ease my occasional frustrations without a trip to the corner store for ice cream and soda?

Would I burn out and morph suddenly into a shopaholic? Or would I find myself more easily satisfied, more creative, more loving and grateful? Would I find an interesting class of non-shoppers to befriend, scattered throughout my current life, eager to offer tips and share experiences? Would I run into jerks who feel inexplicably threatened by my lifestyle choices, like the coworker yesterday who announced his intention to "convert" me from my vegetarian ways?

Perhaps most importantly, from a social experimentalist perspective, do I even have the right to let such an opportunity slip away? After all, I'm young, childless, and living and working at cooperatives. My husband is totally behind any and every idiotic scheme I'm capable of coming up with. I have a proven capacity to record my endeavors for posterity, whether or not they're worth reading. I would not be embarking on said experiment out of necessity, and could "back out" whenever I wanted.

If we decided to go through with the experiment, I believe these would be the ground rules:

- We would start on July 1st and end on April 1st.

- The goal would not be to save, invest, or service debt, but to abstain from spending money, to potentially cauterize the wound of capitalism at its source. Therefore the success of this project lies not in how much we have in the bank come next April, but how deeply we can enjoy life regardless of our account balances.

- Because rent at our house covers food and other daily necessities, we will obviously continue to pay for that. Our second priority will be health and absolutely nothing will come between me and getting the dental care I need.

- We will also continue to purchase whatever is absolutely necessary to maintain hygiene, employment, transportation, and other needs as they arise.

- We will continue to manage money responsibly by saving 10% of our income and heavily servicing debt. Both saving and debt servicing will come after paying dental expenses.

- If and when we do spend, we will attempt to do so as responsibly as possible. We will first seek out a cooperative business, if one is not available we will purchase from a non-profit, and failing that we will purchase from a local business.

I have eleven days to consider this and talk it over with Darling. We'd definitely have some kinks to work out, but to be honest, I'm really not seeing why wouldn't go for it.

7 Deadly Sins, Day One

My Money, My Life has this meme, which I discovered from Serendipity. How could I resist?

Day 1-Pride. Seven great things about yourself.

1. I am quick-witted. Many people confuse this for intelligence, and those people are not as quick-witted as me. Math makes me cry, but I do constantly notice things that other people miss and am rarely surprised by "unexpected" outcomes in social situations. I always have a comeback.

2. I'm monotone. Think MTV's Daria. This has totally saved my butt because, being quick-witted and unintelligent, my mouth moves faster than my brain. I will be standing in a group of people and will hear someone say something incredibly clever and horribly inappropriate and...oh crap, that was me. But half the time my tone of voice disguises my intent to the point that people have no idea if they've been insulted or complimented.

3. My heritage. I am from Texas. I am third generation Texan. I am very practically a third generation Austinite. There are only about seven of us in existence, and two live in California.

4. My skin. I don't put anything on my face except the same bar soap I use on the rest of my body. I'm not quite certain what it is about their faces many women trying to fix with make-up, but mine is freaking perfect, freckles and all.

5. My hourglass figure. I have a real-life, honest-to-God, hour-glass figure. This is the result not of having the tiniest waste in the world, but the biggest breasts and hips of anyone with my frame. I realize that the small boy and/or creepy skeletal hips and shoulder blades is in for girls right now, but fashion has never made much sense to me.

6. I'm immune to fashion. Totally, 100% could.not.care.less. One time my girlfriends and I thought it would be a laugh to wander around the drag dressed like well-to-do business me. It was amazing to me how many college chicks in fluorescent baggy shirts over jeggings turned to stare at us.

7. I have the best friends in the entire world. I don't know what these people are thinking, wasting their valuable time on me. It can't possibly be my boobs or nose. Everywhere I go I find the greatest people in the world to hang out with. My only regret is that they live all over the world.

Join the fun! Here are the questions.
Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven love secrets.

Being Me

I'm not going to go by Tread Softly anymore. My name is Maya.

Last year there were too many near misses and introductions. I've been a closet blogger, quietly tapping out my thoughts on consumption and financial evolution and hoping to God no one found out about my secret on-line identity.

It's a self-esteem act, I think, preferring to feel like a failed writer altogether than admit to my friends and family that I pour my heart and soul into a series of half-baked essays and manifestos on financial integrity. I don't want my brother to challenge me, as I know he will, about the merits of a mortgage rather vs. the insecurity of renting. I don't want employers or coworkers to know where I spend my money, I don't want my friends to feel judged about where they spend theirs. I prefer reading comments, accepting critique, at my leisure.

"Tread Softly" was a fiction I developed, a champion of my most precious values who no one ever had to take seriously. A mask I could wear while blogging and discard at work, the grocery store, or bar. A stagnant entity that changed in vague announcements on a near-monthly basis: Tread Softly opened a savings account. Tread Softly is going camping. Tread Softly liked riding the bus, now she likes biking. Tread feels very two-dimensional because my friends don't know her, my family can't tease her, my bosses can't fire her.

This isn't my way of confessing hypocrisy. Quite the opposite: I don't want or need the mask anymore. When new friends ask how I spend my time, the blog and its content come immediately to mind. Financial integrity comes up in conversation and I feel entitled to speak up, obligated to voice my opinions. Maya's opinions, not Tread's suspicions.

What's more, the topics within this blog and my daily life are no longer personal enough to tuck away in a private spot on the Internet. I live with nine other people and our finances are intertwined. I belong to a community of like-minded individuals, and when you google certain topics in Austin, this blog pops up. I can either wrap myself in nicknames and allusions and metaphors or quit making myself look silly. Or both, of course.

I hope that this blog and its readers continue to enrich my life, that I can share and live my values with you and that the process will all make us better people. I hope none of you steal my identity, drain my bank account, or steal my stuff. If you want any, I'm sure we can share :)

Cast of Characters

When Darling and I first moved to Austin and started this blog, the two of us pretty much stuck to ourselves. I wrote about our weekly grocery trips and where are paychecks went, only occasionally mentioning the rare night out with friends and only ever giving my little sister a serious pseudonym.

These days a lot of my frugality has to do with daily interactions with friends, family, housemates, and coworkers. I lose track of who I've introduced and by what name. So, for those of you so fascinated with my life, I present you with a cast of characters of whom I can refer to from now on:

Family

• Mom
• Dad
• Rox - my stepmom
• Tricia - my adopted Mom, who supported me during my last couple of year's of high school
• Eb - my elder brother by about twenty years
• Froggy - Eb's small daughter
• Ob - my older brother by about five years
• JK - Ob's wife
• BabyO - Ob's baby girl
• Lenore - My little sister, four years younger than me (two inches taller, thirty pounds thinner...)
• Wang - Lenore's husband

Friends

• Ambi - Known since I was eleven, Tricia's daughter, and smartest person I know. She builds lasers for the university and taught me to make beer.
• Mordi - Ambi's boyfriend since we were fifteen, he's been running games for us ever since.
• Dani - best friend from East Texas (actually, she is Canadian, but moved here in elementary school). She's currently renting a room from Lenore and Wang while going to grad school.
• Raja - was introduced to me when we were juniors in high school by Ambi, we've been hardcore tight ever since.
• Xy - Raja's husband

House Mates (Each of these people is so absurdly amazing and deserves a paragraph singing their praises, but I'm going to err on the side of valuing their privacy in this case)

• Rin
• BS
• SK
• Bo
• Vin
  
• Em
• Mimi

This is by no means a summing up of all the people who influence and enrich my life, but it will make it far easier for me to describe my days and lifestyle without writing an introductory paragraph at each mention.

Thanksgiving and Consciousness

I hope everyone had an excellent holiday. I stuffed myself silly with tofurkey and potatos and creamed corn and so many desserts! My grown-up-but-still-my-baby-sister announced that she married her fiancee (apparently the ladies in my family avoid ceremony like the plague), and Darling and I were house-sitting and watched television until our eyes fell out. Good times. I also had a really good time riding the bike I borrowed.

I worked on Buy Nothing Day, and in fact totally forgot to buy nothing because I needed contact lens solution something awful. Then it occured to me that I have to buy a $7-$12 bottle of the stuff every month. When figuring out the price difference between contacts and glasses, I never thought about the price of solution, much less the environmental effect. Keep in mind that I also simply can't see as well with glasses than with contacts. My vision is so bad - and steadily worsening - that doctors have begun to warn me that lasik surgery is an eventuality for me if I don't want to have to learn to read brail. Which is neither here nor there, but I'll be getting an eye exam in the next few weeks and need to know whether or not I want to give my eyes a break from the little plastic buggers in 2011.

Anyways, last week I took Consciously Frugal's advice and started reading Your Money or Your Life. This is possibly the best financial book I have ever read, and I've been through a lot of that section of the library. One of the first steps is to tally up all the money you have ever had hold of in your entire life. For reals.

So I started with the first money I ever had, a small coin collection, and moved from there. Added the $5-$20 bills in birthday cards, the first odd jobs, the big birthday presents, a small squandered inheritence, graduation presents, several loans, jobs, bonuses, tips...obviously I had to guess at a lot of this, and really had to rack my brain for every single job ($200 for house sitting in 2004...$40 for teaching someone Microsoft Word...) but I think I got most of it pretty accurately.

And you know what? I have been through a lot of money. Like, way a lot. Twice what I would have expected. It's embarassing to admit, but in 25 years and 7 months I have gone through a little over $100,000. I mean, sure I've worked steadily since getting my first "real" job at 13, but six freaking figures? And I'm still this deep in debt? Happy as I am not to own a car, it seems like having spent $100,000 I should have a dealership. And there's money I forgot; I'm just now remembering that $20 bill I found on the road Christmas of 2003.

Do you guys hate me? I shouldn't have mentioned my secret wealth. Now you all hate me. In your minds I have been transformed from the matchstick girl to the welfare queen. Though I am not on welfare.

Whether or not you hate me, I can't help feeling a little betrayed by myself.

Isn't that weird? This aspect of myself, the woman who was able to accumulate and dismiss that much money and not even notice it? I'm horrified. Not about the money so much as by the attitude, the carelessness. Who am I, to have lived such a way?

Which brings me to the point that this is probably not a healhty perspective, and it might have a tiny bit to do with my feelings about material wealth to begin with. Which might have to do with the way in which I was raised. Which might be affecting my current financial decisioin making process in a negative way.

I don't want to get all touchy feely on you guys, but I am considering writing a series of posts on my financial history. Put my background down, all those details I haven't shared with my best friends but might as well be read by lovely ladies in New Zealand. It might just be one post, it might come to a dozen, I'm not sure where it will lead. Hopefully it won't bore you to death. Maybe it will give me insight, and help me move forward, so the next $100,000 isn't so terribly wasted.

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.

Changing Approach

I took a couple of weeks off both blogging and journaling in general. After my last post and a rather mean comment it invited, I wanted some time to think of how I am presenting myself and our projects, big and small.

Once upon a time I read blogs that told me how great alternative lifestyles can be. Most of the writers were established and more-or-less comfortable in their various situations, whether it was living a sustainable lifestyle in Houston or a rural homestead in Oregon. Very, very few of my online heroines were in the beginning stages of their journeys, many are enjoying the fruits of their labors.

I love those blogs and deeply appreciate the wealth of knowledge their authors have provided the world with. But something was missing in the content. We all know the sweet joy of fresh baked bread, the deep comfort of committed companionship, and the precious freedom of travel and transient living. But few authors expressed the negative side of alternative living. Those first rock-hard loaves of bread, the difficulties of minimum-wage living, the growing pains of early marriage...if those small agonies are mentioned in many blogs, it is with lighthearted humor.

I want my blog to be something that young adults can relate to on their personal journeys. It's not all sunshine and bran flakes. I try to present a balanced and fair view of my life. I chase challenges like a dog chasing cats, and sometimes I get scratched.

Most of the time, my life is absurdly rewarding. I live in a home full of friends, my family is supportive and loyal, my husband is my hero, my food is organic and plentiful. But because I'm fighting for more out of life, I share the downs as well as the ups.

I'm sorry if this in any way upsets or worries readers. You all know that life is hard and certainly don't need me to remind you! But I want you to also see that life is amazing, and what we can accomplish is astounding. I feel that by being honest about the lows, you can better understand the highs. I'll try to post more during the week so you can get a better feel for what's going on. I'll answer Lizzie's questions about financing and my Mom. The reason I haven't yet is because Darling and I have been playing this by ear - we honestly didn't know how we were going to pay for the house a month ago, and we are still working out detail after detail. Our situation changes daily, making it hard to make honest posts about specific issues.

...Anyway, last week we hired a mini-escavator and finished digging the trenches and started the rubble trench foundation. This week we put in the french drain! Hope to get ya'll an update on that, and much more, in the next couple of days.

Cleaning Up

I'm doing some housekeeping here on The Challenge. Put up a new image, changed templates, updated my photo, and finally started cleaning up the tags. I have over 700 posts to go through to complete that last chore, but it will be well worthwhile to have the system actually make sense. Hopefully the final step will be learning to use the camera The Lost Goat gave me so I can have a grown-up blog once and for all.

One thing that surprised me going through the old posts was just how short some of my entries were. Sometimes less than a full paragraph, just a brief check-in with my blog peeps. I'll keep that in mind, because I'd rather have a daily "hello" than a bi-weekly essay.

Yesterday was my last official day on the schedule at trend job. I didn't quit and wasn't fired, and can pick up shifts whenever I want, which technically makes me a freelance waitress. I'll probably start my job on the farm next week, which is exciting. I can feel this total shift in how money comes into our lives. For the first time, we will be working and earning on our own terms.

The Schedule

I finally sat down with Darling and worked out a schedule, which was almost more complicated than creating a working budget. For the first time ever the purpose wasn't to arrange activities, classes, or shifts, but to ensure family, spouse, and personal time.

Fortunately, those three areas mesh fairly well. I can babysit while keeping my sister company, not to mention knit, sew, watch movies, and cook - my favorite leisure activities.

Sunday will be my day off. I intend to go to spend that day with Darling and friends, attend church in the morning, maybe have a meal out, and otherwise relax.

Monday I'll be chilling all day with the niece and sister before the evening co-op meeting.

Tuesday morning my week effectively starts with job3 at the cafe, and will be followed by an evening shift with job2.

Wednesday is another day with my sister - maybe we'll catch a movie or something we can't do with the baby - and that evening I'll be back at job2.

Thursday I'm at Job3, then at job1.

Friday I can spend time with my sister and Darling both before heading to in for my evening shift with job1.

And Saturday is shared with Job3 and Job2.

This schedule enables me to spend as much time as possible with Darling and three days a week withfamily. Job1 and Job3 have confirmed that this schedule works for them, now I just have to iron things out with Job2.