Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "money" Category
Tires are like underwear
I’m trying to trick myself into thinking that new tires are just as exciting as a new purse.
I’m pretty sure it isn’t working.
There are all of these ways that I love being an adult. I love being married. I love owning a home. I love transforming my home into something special for Brian and I. I love that all of my friends have made adorable babies and I get to hand the babies back to their parents when they start crying.
But then there are these adult things that I must do that suck. Like paying my student loans on time each month. Or taking out the trash when it’s raining and I’m trying to get to work. Or spending the money I saved for indulgence at the MAC counter on new tires for the car.
So now I catch myself trying to rationalize the tires and make myself happy I spent the money that way.
Without new tires on the Civic, the car would not pass inspection. Without a passing inspection, I would not be able to drive the car legally on May 1st. Without a car to drive, I would not be able to accomplish my twenty mile commute to work without two trains and a short bus. Without work, I would have no where to show off my fabulous MAC indulgences and no income to buy more.
Tires should make me happy.
I told my mother this as I drove to work yesterday. Even though I knew it sounded slightly insane. Even though I knew there was a 90% chance, she would gasp, have a heart attack and her last words would be “save your money”.
Instead she paused and said “Well, tires are like underwear. No one sees it but you better have it on”.
I probably wouldn’t have spent the money at the MAC counter anyway. There would have been some other “underwear” purchase I would have made. Or I would have used the money to help someone else. I just like the possibilities aspect of having that money in my bank account.
Would I have purchased something to surprise my husband with? Would we have used the money for paint for the house? How many books could I buy with that much cash? Could it have bought a plane ticket for a vacation? Maybe it could buy some diapers and formula for a low income family?
In the midst of mature, responsible adult decisions, I find my imagination takes over. Like a little kid getting allowance, I imagine all of the glorious things those dollars could be doing and how much happiness it could buy me.
I wonder if the imagination is how we make the adult decisions easier to do. Instead of thinking you just lost all of your money for the month on rent or a mortgage, you think about the friends you’ll have over to your place that month. Instead of getting frustrated when it is time to pay for a tank of oil, you think about how good a hot shower feels at the end of the day. Instead of complaining about the cost of new tires, you think about all of the places those tires will take you.
I made Brian admire my tires. The gratitude was good for both of us.
I am so over my commute
It wasn’t so bad when I first started this job. I was still living at home with my parents and my office was only 10 miles from home. Actually, it was a nice little ride to the office. I could rock out in the car to Say Anything or clear my mind and do some much needed thinking.
I even planned most of my wedding during my commute home, catching up with vendors that I could not reach during the day.
But then I moved in with my husband. Which was great because living with your spouse is always better than not living with your spouse. Until I realized I was now 16 miles from work. And 16 miles from work actually meant that I had a 45 to 60 minute commute to work.
This meant that I was spending as much as 10 hours of my life each week getting to and from work.
Now that we’ve moved to Bristol, I’m twenty miles from work. And now I spend more like 12 hours a week in the car commuting.
Even writing about the commute makes my stress level go up. It gives me an overwhelming urge to only use run-on sentences, minimal punctuation but with additional exclamation points and a need to scream my head off and give someone the bird.
Maybe driving isn’t as relaxing as it used to be.
Commuting was kind of fun when I first started. In a weird way, it made me feel more like an adult. Sort of like it did when I paid the first health insurance bill. Except now, I’m very grateful for health insurance whereas I’m not so sure I’m grateful for my commute.
When I get home from work at night, I like to walk around the Boro and fantasize about a life without a commute to work. At first that looked like me being a stay at home wife while Brian went out and obtained lots of Benjamin’s for us but then after a while, I started to imagine him in a suit and tie with briefcase in hand and that sort of destroyed everything I love about my husband. Now I fantasize about waking up and either walking or biking to work. I imagine going out my back door, getting my bike and heading down Spring Street to a job that does not have business casual as a description in its dress code.
I have small town dreams these days.
It is 2009, Do you know where your student loans are?
We have a lot on our financial plate. A mortgage. A car payment. Student loans. Health insurance for my husband. Cell phones, credit card payments, utilities, auto insurance. The list goes on and on. None of these things are necessarily bad things and for the most part, it is very manageable.
Even in a recession, we could keep up with our bills that were coming in each month.
I started to get a little cocky. Look at me acting like an adult, doing the right thing, managing everything we had signed up for. I secretly moonlight as a rockstar. I know where everything is going and its getting done on time.
But here’s where it gets tricky – I’ve moved three times in the last two years. And I got married. And I changed my name after I got married. And one of my student loans was sold 6 times during that time period.
Wait. What? Who has my student loan now? And if I don’t know who has my loan, are all of my bases really covered?
The truth is I am not sure. And I’ve been spending an obscene amount of time trying to find that out. For some reason, it never fully clicked in my head that I would need to keep up with who owns my loan.
So far I’ve learned that buyouts and takeovers were the primary reason for my loan changing hands so many times. In one instance, my loan was only owned by a bank for less than five days before it was sold again. Half of the companies do not exist anymore, or at least not in the same way they did when they acquired my loan. In some cases, my loan was sold for less than what was owed. And in the mess of buyouts, my information was not updated correctly.
It has become a giant, nasty, confusing, evil nightmare mess.
In case you are in a similar situation, here are a few things I’ve learned the hard way:
1. Know who owns your loan. It isn’t enough anymore to just send your payment on time to the loan service. If your loan has changed hands, it may have been sold incorrectly. In one instance, my loan changed hands for $25 less than the loan amount and the old company waited almost a year to notify me of the difference.
2. Don’t just send money. Make sure the company actually owns your loan. You should get something in the mail that tells you what you owe, who you owe it to and what the payment plan is going to be.
3. Ask for a payment book. That is your proof that you are paying who you are supposed to pay. And it helps if your payment was applied to the wrong account. Apparently that happens far more often than I realized. Coupled with a bank statement or a canceled check, your payment book can cover you in case of a clerical error.
4. If it seems shady, ask for the note. “Can you show me where I signed?” is a very powerful question. If it is a legitimate company, they will make every effort to provide you with that information. If they aren’t on the up and up, you will most likely be hung up on quickly. Don’t ask this question with the intent of not paying – ask it with the intent of determining ownership of the loan.What have you learned when it comes to dealing with your loans?
How much does your candy dish cost?
A friend of mine works in an office where they recently removed the company candy dish as a cost saving measure. Really. I didn’t believe her when I first heard it but they did and now her office is candy free.
I’m trying to wrap my mind around it but it seems so ridiculous to me. After all, she works in a small legal office. That candy dish probably costs about $10 per week to fill or $520 to fill it annually. It’s not like they were filling the dish with Godiva either. Hershey’s chocolate at Sam’s Club is not a massive expensive.
Could her company really be in a position where $10 a week is truly going to make or break them?
My guess is no but they are probably using these economic times as an excuse to get rid of something that annoyed someone, somewhere at some time.
The candy dish itself doesn’t really matter.
But now the ill will the quick removal of that candy dish has caused will matter.
The best part about it is that they probably couldn’t have gotten rid of the candy dish slowly, with no one being the wiser. Maybe take a little longer on Monday to refill it. Maybe downgrade the goodies on Wednesday. Maybe next week, you wait until someone asks to refill the dish. And each time, you take a little longer until one day the dish just disappears. Poof!
Who knows where the candy dish is? And if no one can remember, then you are in the clear.
Instead, my friend is trapped in an office where everyone is talking about the candy dish. And if they had to get rid of the candy dish, then what else will they be getting rid of? Will there be bonuses this year? Will there be a raise this year? Will there be (dun, dun, dun) layoffs this year?
And now her company has spent more than $10 this week on paranoid rumblings and rumors.
Maybe that’s the important lesson for business owners and management: your employees are on edge and they are looking for a sign. They want something to tell them that everything is going to be fine and they won’t need to worry about paying their mortgage or finding college tuition money for their kids or having their vacation fund. They are looking for hope in a snickers bar. To you, getting rid of a candy dish is not a big deal but to your employees, it may very well be a prophecy of the company’s coming economic success. If you need to make cuts, do it. But cut something that matters and let everyone enjoy the happiness that is their afternoon candy treat.
We Stole All of It
Yesterday, as I arrived at the hospital, I overheard part of a conversation between two departing visitors.
“Well, you know all of the land along Route 413 was stolen from the Indians. Including the land for this hospital!” Her tone of voice was filled with disgust that people would live their lives on stolen land. How dare they!
Um, this is Bucks County. In Pennsylvania. The county is filled with names like Neshaminy and Nockamixon. There are documented Lenni Lenape tribe sites in the county parks.
Of course the land was stolen. How else would someone have gotten the land in the first place?
If you want to be technical, the whole county is stolen land. All of it. And really the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is stolen land.
And then I started thinking about wars and how no one ever went to war because their neighboring country or group was just giving their land away. At some point in time, every piece of land has been stolen from someone else. It just might not be in our collective memory.
I kept giggling to myself as I walked into the hospital. I’ll take the bright spot in a day wherever I can find it.
Honey do? Honey Don’t.
In my head, I know “Honey Do” lists are one of the worst things ever.
Partially because no one tells you to create “Honey Do” lists when they give you unsolicited marriage advice during an engagement and early days of marriage. People told me to not let myself go or to never go to bed angry or always tell each other our story of us. No one ever said “create a laundry list of tasks you’d like your spouse to complete and pass it along whenever possible”.
The other reason I know that my “Honey Do” lists are horrible is because whenever I attempt to give one to Brian the response is usually something along the lines of “I refuse to submit to your unreasonable list of demands”. And while I did not think my lists were unreasonable, I have to respect Brian’s desire to not receive those lists.
Lately, I’ve been sending him renovation lists which are remarkably similar to Honey Do’s but usually include items such as “build and install custom kitchen cabinets”, “obtain 4 quotes from heating and oil specialists” or “remove wall that is visually displeasing to my eyes”. Since he is a contractor, none of these requests are particularly unreasonable but would probably be entertaining to outsiders if the list fell out of his pocket.
But with work slowing down (okay, screeching to a bitter and painful stop) in the construction industry, I’ve started sending Honey Do lists to him again. Because on the days he is a stay at home husband, I can’t come home and do everything. That’s not to say that he doesn’t do things around the house to begin with but it just really sucks to come home and have to cook dinner when someone else was home from work for the day.
The recession is redefining our gender roles within our marriage. Which is entertaining because we previously believed that our gender roles were much more fluid than they actually were. And that was a surprise.
We also didn’t expect that I would be the primary source of income. Or rather the steady source of income. When work is available, my husband makes considerably more money than I do. I’ve got to admit, it was a terrible blow to my ego when we first were married and I was very angry about. Now the roles have been reversed and I still don’t like it.
So I cope by making lists. Lists about laundry and lists about cleaning and lists about how someone other than me should be spending his time. I hope that wall is out when I get home.
We are the lucky ones
I usually don’t like to blog about the recession – it seems pointless to me. My husband and I aren’t really that special as far as an economic example. We both have jobs, we have no kids, I have student loans, and we just bought a house. Sure there are differences between our situation and our friends’ situations but in most cases the similarities are greater than the differences.
And besides, usually the recession doesn’t hit too close to home.
Brian and I are the lucky ones. I work in pharmaceuticals and while there have been some layoffs in the industry, I don’t need to worry about it too much. Brian has much less job security than I do though. Why? He is a finish carpenter. He doesn’t work unless you want to build or remodel.
We’ve been lucky though. Most days there is work for him. Most of the time, he can bring home a full paycheck. And on the days there is no work available for him, we try to remember that we’ve been given the blessing of an extra day to work on our home.
We’ve heard the horror stories. We had a friend who kept showing up at job sites and asking if there was any work available. He had great carpentry skills but was usually find work as a punch out guy or a paint and spackle bitch. We know another guy who took a huge pay cut just to stay with the home builder he had worked for. It helped him survive the layoff but it certainly didn’t help him pay child support.
The faces at the job sites are changing. Everyone is just trying to get by and many of the builders are just trying to keep their doors open. Supervisors are doing the work usually reserved for day laborers.
This past week, there were three horrible days when there was no work for Brian. The first day wasn’t so bad. The second day was concerning and annoying. The third day had my stomach in a knot: how were we going to pay the mortgage? What cuts can we make to our budget? Is the peanut butter I purchase for his lunch every day too expensive?
I also knew I was being ridiculous.
By Friday morning, I was a wreck. Was this a sign of things to come? Would I become the primary breadwinner in our family? Had the recession finally hit our home?
Fortunately there was work for Brian. And my sanity quickly returned as I heard the news. I could have danced around the office in joy. Once again, we were blessed.
When times are good, it can be so easy for this carpenter’s wife to forget what the bad looks like. When people are buying new homes or remodeling their old homes, my husband makes considerably more money than I do. He makes a family’s life better by changing the space they live in, transforming it into something truly beautiful.
But when the economic climate changes, our lifestyle changes very quickly. Even when we are the lucky ones.
This past week was a reminder, while we don’t have to make any major changes to the way we live right now, this is the time to start cutting back a bit. Do we really need to spend this much money on a gift? Why do I think I need new clothes? How can I save money at the grocery store? Why do we have so many online game accounts anyway?
So far, the biggest changes we have had to make involve changing our remodeling schedule for the house. While we had hoped to put in new windows this spring (the current windows are ancient), we’ll have to wait until 2010. After all, there are 20 windows that need replacing. That could easily cost us four thousand dollars to do the job properly. We’re going to wait a little longer to build our master bedroom suite but that’s okay. Keeping a roof over our heads is far more important.
We’ve also had to rethink about how we want to vacation. While we had been hoping that 2009 would be a big vacation year, we just can’t spend money that way right now. And if at the last minute, there was work available for Brian, we would have to take advantage of the available work. We’ll probably go camping this year (while I have separation anxiety from my laptop until it fully sinks in that I’ll be able to catch up on my reading list).
Navigating a recession and keeping your sanity means you need to stay focused on what you have and what you can do. I have a husband who loves me. I have a roof over my head. I have a good life. I can feel grateful for what I have. I can make wise choices with the things entrusted to my care. I can keep my eyes on what is coming over the horizon.
Change is always coming. What “this too shall pass” really means is cherish it while you have it. Even if it is unpleasant.
Babies: How many should you have?
Last week in California, a woman gave birth in 8 babies. And by gave birth, what we really mean is that she had a c-section because humans are not animals designed to give birth to 8 babies at once.
The woman already had 6 children. She’s a single mother. She conceived all of her babies through in vitro fertilization.
And now America debates: How many children should a woman have?
And once again, America is talking about events that transpire between a woman’s thighs.
If this woman had birthed 14 babies naturally and without fertility help, people may raise a few eyebrows about the fun she must have been having at night but America would not be discussing her reproductive decisions. But her children appeared with the aid of fertility drugs and that’s where this gets messy. Why did she feel the need to be pregnant once again after already having 6 children? She was a single woman, she was pursuing her Master’s degree in counseling, she was living with her parents.
While the whole situation makes me shake my head in disbelief, I still must ask the question: since when is the number of babies a woman has any of your business? The last time I checked, that was an issue between the mother, the family, the doctor and God.
Yes, there is a concern if the state is picking up the cost of the children. Neonatal care for 8 babies does not come cheap. Diapers are not cheap. Formula does not come cheap (let’s face it: she doesn’t have the milk production that would happen if the mom had 8 nipples). Babies are expensive. And yes, there is a concern from the insurance company regarding the cost of hospital care and what they are legally obligated to pay.
But beyond that, why is America concerned? Is it genuine compassion and concern? Or is it, once again, a side effect of our voyeuristic tendencies and our chronic know-it-all behavior?
My belief is the latter.
But here’s the big problem with our behavior in this situation: by sticking our noses in another families business, we make it easier for our own lives to be invaded. Sure, the woman has 14 children. Maybe that does make her an easy target. But what happens further on down the line?
Could I someday be criticized because I want to have four kids? Would that become the government’s business, the community’s business, your business? Would someone outside of my family with no knowledge of my health or my ability to parent be able to make a decision about what was too much?
Or a scarier thought: could it someday be determined that you were not having enough children? Could the government or the insurance company someday inform you that you are expected to have three children when you really want one child or no child? By opening the door, this could go both ways although one way is much harder to comprehend.
Really, this situation has nothing to do with a woman in California who opted to have 14 children. We want to say it is to ease our minds but we’re only fooling ourselves.
If we are really honest, if we really want to think critically about the situation, we have to realize that this has everything to do with reproductive rights. The conversation is taking place in a different package than Roe vs. Wade but the heart of the conversation is the same. We’re okay talking about abortion these days even though it can still get a bit heated at times but we’re okay with it because we know what to expect. Person A is going to talk about how life begins at conception and Person B is going to talk about it is the woman’s body that matters and then Person C is going to say it is not a decision she could make but she will never restrict another woman’s right to make that decision.
So is it anyone’s business if a woman decides to use help to get pregnant by utilizing fertility treatments? And is it anyone’s business if she becomes the mother of a multiple birth? As a society, do we want to create a minimum or maximum number of children a family is expected to have? And does a single woman have a right to be a family with her children? Or is a family just a mother, a father and children? Where does this leave single parent households, grandparents raising their children’s children, gay couples and the polygamists?
1Q09
I usually make a laundry list of New Year’s resolutions for myself. I am going to do this. I am not going to do that. I am going to completely transform my life and there is no room for mistakes because I’m only going to live this life once and it has to be perfect.
To which the universe likes to respond with uncontrollable laughter.
Last year I was better. Last year I only made five New Year’s Resolutions. And I did better with them than I usually do. I did write more. I did start reading regularly again (and once I got over the initial hump of reading, I enjoyed it enough to find time for it again). I did take better care of myself (thanks Adam!).
If the quality of a year can be based only on the success of New Year’s Resolutions, then 2008 was my best year ever.
Then again, maybe it is a really good thing that New Year’s Resolutions success is not the only aspect to quality of life.
I had a plan that I was going to do away with my Resolutions this year. And that’s why I did not write about them earlier. Because I wasn’t going to acknowledge the new calendar year in such a way.
Slowly but surely (okay, not slowly, I caved in about a week), I abandoned my plan. I just couldn’t do it. I could not open my pink planner everyday of the year and not see my list of my resolutions (carefully printed on my favorite stationary), waiting for me to be inspired by my best intentions.
At least this year, I’ll only have one resolution: I’m doing quarterly goals.
I’m trying to think about it this way: The only thing that I know about my life twelve months from now is that it won’t be the same as it is today. How can I write a good resolution if I don’t know where I’ll be? And if things aren’t going the way I hope they will, if life gets in the way, if whatever happens, a New Year’s Resolution isn’t going to do me any good.
With resetting my goals every quarter, I’ll give myself a chance to keep an eye on where I’m going and make sure what I thought would work actually does work. It also gives me the chance to set smaller, more manageable goals and still have focus when a goal is complete.
I’ve set a meeting with myself on April 1st to evaluate how my first quarter worked out. Two big items for discussion with myself involve how successful I was with paying down credit card debt and not making any new purchases (ie: using the library instead of spending my hard earned cash on books I don’t have time to read yet).
Here’s to 1Q09!
The Office Pollyanna
I’ve been tormenting the poor soul whose name I pulled from the ceramic snowflake for our office’s Secret Pollyanna gift exchange. I keep leaving post-it notes all over the office with clues as to who I am. Except the clues aren’t that good. “I work Monday through Friday” really isn’t much help when everyone is expected to be in the office Monday through Friday. “I get paid on pay day” and “I don’t hitchhike to work” weren’t exactly helpful either. And I keep leaving the notes in her coffee mug, message pad, files she needs for clients or coat pockets.
I find the paranoia that has ensued entertaining.
I justify my tormenting because I always include gifts when I torment the poor soul. Yes, I am trying to buy the person’s love with presents. I figure it’s worked well for countless guys trying to get the girl so maybe it could work for me too.
I’ve also justified it by reminding myself that this poor soul is my friend outside of work as well. And if it wasn’t for the fact that the torment is taking place inside of cubeland, she probably would think it was funny.
For now, she just thinks it is annoying. But I have to get my kicks somehow and this seems to be the best, socially acceptable way to do it during the month of December.
The office gift exchange is always a tricky situation. Not only do you have to hope and pray that you pull the name of someone you like from the pool (because there is nothing worse than having to buy a gift for your arch-nemesis) but you also have to hope and pray that someone you like pulls your name from the pool (because the only thing worse than buying a gift for your arch-nemesis is having your arch-nemesis buy a gift for you).
Another hard part about the gift exchange is that there is always a “target” gift amount. For example, my office uses a target of $20, plus or minus $5. I guess that is the nice way of saying don’t spend less than $15 and don’t spend more than $25. I know this target has been put in place to help us but really it just makes things more complicated. There is always one person who spends way more money than they are supposed spend and then makes everyone else look cheap.
This year, I was the overspender. Now I have to hope and pray that the usual overspender does what he did for the last two years (spend an obscene amount of money on a gift that really isn’t office appropriate). Or that someone else buys a gift that is not office appropriate.
The other thing about the office Pollyanna that is weird is that everyone watches you open your gift. And then you have to guess who gave you the gift. It wasn’t so bad when the office was smaller but we’ve almost doubled in size since I started working here. Now there are a lot more people to pick from when you are making your guess. And a lot more faces watching as you try to remember who received gifts from who (because you have to keep guessing until you figure it out and no one gets to eat lunch until all of the gift givers are guessed – this can add a lot of pressure as the faces look hungrier and hungrier).
All of my post-it note fun ends tomorrow at the annual holiday luncheon. I guess I’ll just have to find a new way to keep myself entertained in January.
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