Money Goals and How We Save

I am writing down specific budget goals for the year. April’s not too late, right? Kat’s buy-in is critical of course, but I’ll discuss with her after I’m satisfied with them. I’ve been sort of working toward these goals already; just haven’t taken the time to record them.

Most have to do with savings — increasing what I call our “cushion” savings as well as our larger "emergency" savings. The former is a savings account where our checking is. I dip into it easily via on-line banking and use it to chunk surplus income into (Kat gets overtime, so some months are better than others), then to take money out for large unexpected expenses.

The “emergency” savings is intended to support us for a few months in case of a major event that might lead to losing a steady paycheck. It is in a separate bank which I cannot access quite as easily. I have an automatic payment plan set up with my primary bank that sends money over with each paycheck.

Automating our savings is something I wish I had done much, much sooner. Since I started doing it two years ago, the account has grown to nearly $7,000 (which equals only about three months of pared down spending). If it weren’t automated, we would be lucky to have $2,000 there. The other $5,000 would have been frittered away.

I also want to increase our targeted savings for the kitchen update. The problem with this targeted savings is the current set-up. I separate it in Quicken from our cushion savings, but in reality it’s in the same account. I will be tempted to dip into that for “cushion” type expenses if my cushion account doesn’t bear up under the weight of those pesky financial hits that seem to keep coming.

The latest is a kitty issue. Our sweet, thirteen-year-old cat Beano (Kat named her; long story) has an abscessed molar. The cost of finding this out and fixing it will probably be close to $700. We’ll find out the extent of the damage after her blood work comes back, the results of which will determine the vet’s approach to the surgery. Fortunately  we just received a bit of a bonus. I paid the last of my real estate taxes, and I had over-saved, giving me an unplanned for $400.

I’ve mentioned before that we’re in a better situation with savings and debt than we’ve ever been before, and yet my worry over this latest set-back feels about the same as it would have a few years ago. As I left the vet’s office, I worried about Miss Bean of course, but then I started worrying about the fact that we have five senior pets, and are we well enough prepared for the inevitable increase in vet expenses? (Not really). What happens if they all get sick or need surgery at the same time?

So I indulged in a little hyperventilation.

Going back to what I wrote about Murphy vs Providence, I am determined to cultivate gratitude. I will be grateful for the bonus we received just in time to defray the cost of Beano’s surgery; grateful that it wasn’t worse than it is; grateful that we are in a decent financial position and have the resources to handle home and auto and pet and health issues, even if doing so means we can’t have some of the things we want. How many people don’t have these resources? How many have to deal with problems I can’t even imagine dealing with? I say “Thank you” through gritted teeth and hope that the practice  becomes an orientation toward life -- without the gritted teeth.

So there’s my number one financial goal — to continue to practice gratitude and to trust in life’s abundance. Trust that what we need will somehow be there, and to be grateful when it is. I do have more specific goals to work toward and will post them after chatting with Kat.

Murphy? or Providence?

My dad has a story he likes to tell of his and mom’s first years of married life back in the sixties. He worked at a steel mill; she was a full-time homemaker. They had very little money, but one month he earned an extra $200 on his paycheck. They came up with all sorts of plans for what they might do with the money, but then Mom had a dental emergency, and the cost to fix her teeth was exactly $200. “We just couldn’t get ahead,” Dad says. “Could not get ahead.”

Which is how I feel sometimes. Kat and I have a little extra left over from the tax return that didn’t get spent on the sewing room project. This is the first year we haven’t had to put our tax return on debt, having paid off our credit card. We’ve been talking of putting it toward either our kitchen re-do or our emergency savings. Or, hmm, I’ve always wanted a KitchenAid stand mixer. Is now the time to start researching deals? We could consider it part of the kitchen update (I can rationalize any purchase).

But life throws curves. We had a severe wind storm blow through San Antonio last month. A few of our shingles were knocked off. The repairs cost $270. Then my primary care doc sent me to the dermatologist for a suspicious mole. Two biopsies later, I find out I am to have two skin thingies excised (one a basil cell carcinoma, the other some atypical cells that could turn into a melanoma). I’m sure we’ll pay at least up to our deductible, which is $500, then whatever the co-insurance is after that. Those two things together take care of the last of the tax return and more.

I’ve thought about Dad’s story over the years. This phenomenon of coming into money at the same time some unexpected expense pops up is certainly not unique to my parents. It happens to everyone. I can look at it as Murphy riding in to snatch that extra money out of our hands, or see it as a caring universe (or Providence or however you might name it) giving me what we need when we need it. The first viewpoint leads to frustration and a lot of “Why me’s?” The second evokes gratitude. I will admit I feel frustrated, but I am going to choose to be grateful that we happen to have this money when we need it to repair our home and take care of my health. And I don’t need a mixer anyway :-)

House Project "Reveal"

Since my latest house transformation project is done, I thought I'd tinker with the look of this blog. My tinkering is not over, but I feel I'm getting closer to what I want.

But now, on to the sewing / guest room transformation and the reveal!

My "before" pictures are of the room in sewing mode:

Drab and cluttered, right?  Normally I have my sewing machine out on the sewing table (where the gray kitty sits in the first picture), and to my right (I'm standing in a small closet) along the wall is my cutting table. I took this after we moved the piano, which used to sit where the small chest is. No wonder I felt claustrophobic when I tried to quilt.

And here are the "after" pictures, two of the sewing room and one in guest room mode:

Thanks to Molly for all her help. I couldn't have done this without her.

Thanks to Neville for adding the perfect touch to the bed.

In guest room mode, the sewing table folds up into a nice-looking cabinet and rolls to the right of the closet in place of the cutting table, which rolls back to our bedroom for the duration of the visit. The pretty green chair sits against the wall to the left, so that the sewing cabinet and chair provide places for guests to set their luggage.

I can't express how pleased I am with our results! I've never considered myself especially creative in  interior design, and neither does Kat. Believe me, our projects don't always turn out this nice.

One of the unexpected bonuses is that the shelves on either side of the Murphy bed provide enough space that we were able to get rid of one of the book cases in our office, opening up that space a little more. And I love, love, love having my beloved books in my creative work space.

There are some additional finishes we could do. It would be nice to have a smaller, more decorative lamp, and maybe an accent rug, a different ceiling fan, but we splurged on the chair ($80 at Kirkland's for the perfect green chair), and on good quality wood and paint. The others are things we can pick up as it fits in the budget.

So, we broke our pledge again of no house projects in January and February, and we used tax return money we were going to put toward the kitchen re-do scheduled for later this year, but I have no regrets. I feel that ultimately we bought light and space. Money well spent.

DIY Project - From Despair to Good Times

How is it that once a project is begun, the world comes crashing in?  Kat and I know to allot more time than we think is needed for any house project. We started the minor renovation of my sewing / guest room with a hard deadline of March 10, the date of the arrival of my sister and nieces for Spring Break. We had two mostly empty weekends to work with, and figured the project would take only one of those weekends with the cracks filled in during the week.

I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story.

On Saturday the ninth, we were frantically finishing up the room while trying to clean, shop for groceries, prep for meals, and all the other things that go with getting ready for guests. We made it, barely.

The unexpected problems that cropped up were, first, my getting a nasty cold and passing it on to Kat. We worked through it, but fatigue was definitely a factor. Then Kat was assigned a trainee at work, which meant much longer hours, and this on top of battling a cold virus. Then I had some issues pop up with volunteer work that needed attention. I fell into that middle-of-project funk when I despair that we’re improving anything and wonder why we made so much seemingly unnecessary work for ourselves.

But in the end we finished just in time for guests to enjoy (very satisfying!!) Today guests have gone home, and I need to clean before I take “after” pictures. I’ll be back soon to show off the project. I am VERY pleased with how it turned out.

Despair is gone, and now time to enjoy, and try hard to ward off the itch to tackle some other project anytime soon.

Making a Small Space Function

See that innocent looking tape measure? I left it on the dresser the other day.

"Why'd you have the tape measure out?" Kat asked when she got home from work.

Doh! I didn't want her to know I was scheming to get the piano out of my sewing room (and primary guest room). I've been feeling way too claustrophobic in there since I'd installed a cutting table. The room is only 9 1/2 feet by 10 feet, and in it fits my sewing table, ironing board, piano, murphy bed, cutting table, and a small chest of drawers. The cutting table folds up nicely, but when I'm using it, I have about a 4 by 4 space to move around in.

My idea was to get rid of the large dresser in our master, downsize my clothes to the small chest currently located in the sewing room, thus freeing space to put the piano in our bedroom. I didn't have everything thought through when Kat found the tape measure, and I didn't want to present my plan prematurely, but too late! She got it out of me -- and flipped upon hearing I wanted to jettison the not-very-old dresser.

Much arguing ensued, during which I dramatically proclaimed that now she could understand why I hadn't wanted to tell her anything until I had it all worked out.

After we both settled down, she thought things over and figured out a way to rearrange the room to make it work without losing the dresser. At first I wasn't too happy, "Why can't we just let go of things?" I said, but Kat is a natural organizer, so in the end I decided to trust her.

I can't believe it, but I love our new bedroom. We did remove a few things -- some book shelves and two pieces of kitty furniture -- but what really opened up the space was rearranging a few pieces of the bedroom furniture. Our piano fits, and the room seems somehow more spacious to me. More comfortable.

And what is more exciting is the sewing room. We pulled everything out and painted, then we centered the murphy bed on the wall; it had been off-center to accommodate the piano. Kat is building cabinets for the top of the murphy bed and shelves along either side so that the whole thing will look built-in (we hope). Our inspiration picture is here at  Houzz.com.

What is so cool is that we're making good use of vertical space. We'll be able to store pillows and bed linens in the cabinets over the murphy bed instead of in our small linen closet. The shelves will house the books that were in the master bedroom with plenty of room for baskets to hold my stash (as in quilting fabrics :-))

I've taken "before" pictures, but it may be a week or so before I have the "after" shots, so I'll wait to post them.

Wish us luck!

Boundaries and Guilt

I said no.

One of the bullet points of my personal mission statement is to "carefully consider requests to commit my time, accepting or declining as best fits my values and goals." Sounds unemotional and reasonable, but I can't adequately express how difficult living this is for me, and what negative emotions it stirs up! I could benefit from a can't-say-no support group.

But for once, I said no.

I was asked to serve on a new, and needed, parish committee by a person I like and respect. My first impulse was to say yes, but I forced myself to sit with the request and think it through. In this case, I could tell that my impulse to join came more from fear of disappointing this person than it did from wanting to commit time to the objectives of the committee, as worthy as those objectives are. It was a tough decision -- the need to please nearly consumes me -- but in the end, I DID say no.

Do I feel good about it? Not really. I'm struggling with guilt and the feeling that I've let this person down. This is why I end up with too much busy and not enough time spent on the things I value most.

As uncomfortable as these feelings are, I will live with them knowing that I made a good decision. Maybe with a little more practice, saying no won't be so hard.

The Last Box

Until a couple of days ago, this is what was left of my real estate life:

I've had it sitting next to my desk for over a month,  intending to sort through it. Finally I seized an empty morning and dug in. Client files I scanned then shredded, and the rest I either scanned then trashed, or gave away.  I did keep a few office supplies.

So it's all over. Still feels strange.

There are vestiges left -- equipment I purchased for the real estate business that I am glad I invested in, as I would never have sprung for these items otherwise (being what Gretchen Rubin and others call an under buyer). At the top of this list of useful equipment is my scanner:

Note the small footprint. Deceptive, because this little guy scans fast and in quantity. Shortly after I purchased it at the beginning of my real estate venture, I took it for a spin by tackling the clutter in our office closet.

We had an entire shelving unit full of binders, which were stuffed with college papers, memorabilia, and photos. I trashed some papers, but what I couldn't part with, I scanned into  labeled folders on my laptop, then backed it all up to an external hard drive. The pictures went into iPhoto, and the actual photos went into photo boxes. We opened up a ton of space, and the scanning was so easy!

I would never have bought this piece of office equipment had I not done real estate. Just too expensive, and I could never have justified it to myself, but it's been worth every penny for its organizing and decluttering abilities.

So thank you Real Estate Venture, for giving me the opportunity to learn new things, make new friends, have different experiences, and own a zippy scanner.