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Archive for December, 2006

More Random Than Usual

December 18th, 2006 at 03:58 am

Yesterday I went out into the frenzy, and made it home alive. I went to the mall-gasp!-but bought two pairs of undies, deposited a bunch of checks at my credit union, and made my getaway. I stopped by the bread thrift store, and spent $5.99, including $1.99 for 8 very nice looking croissants. Third stop, used bookstore, brought a bag in for trade, and with that bag and some previous trade credit, bought some books as presents and some books for me. Last stop, grocery shopping at the Canned Foods outlet. A lot of other shoppers didn’t look too happy, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on a festive vibe.

I’m working right now on round two of present wrapping. I did a big binge a week or so ago, and wrapped around ten or fifteen. (In getting lots of gifts at garage sales and the like, I have more medium and small gifts, and fewer large gifts. That’s okay with me.) I need to wrap all the gifts for work folks early, so that I can bring them in this week. I find wrapping presents very satisfying, fulfilling even.

Nothing more to report on the weekend, except that I made two batches of plum jam. My Guy isn’t into giving gifts with work folk, but since he likes them I have talked him into bringing in a little half pint of jam with a ribbon. He made the last round of apple jelly, and we did the plum and blackberry batches together the time before that, so it’s not as if he’s taking advantage of my labor.

This week will be busy for me at work. I know many people are off, and fore many others it’s a pretty loosy goosey time, but I’ll be hopping. It’s good for me.

LRJohnson's Underclothes

December 14th, 2006 at 04:04 am

Tonight I’m tossing out some underwear. They are springing little white elastic threads everywhere, and it’s time for them to go. I thought to myself, “I have enough underwear, I can toss a pair.” Then I remembered that some of my new underwear weren’t black, and that I had a decision to make.

A little too much information, but I prefer all black underthings. They always match. I could never understand the lure of a pretty blue and yellow floral bra, because with pink and black lace underpants they look awful. I decided that I should go black and white, but that didn’t look great either, so then I went black. Could be different materials or cuts, but black.

After many years of underclothes harmony, I got a free pair of underwear as a sample: turquoise. I didn’t realize it was a harbinger of colors to come.

I decided later that a nude bra would be in order, because nude is the least visible with certain tops. So then there were two.

Then my co-worker opens a pack of underwear, and realized she got the wrong cut, so she kicks them down to me. Now I’ve got freaking white, pink, and lavender, as well as black and the turquoise. And to top it all off, I get a huge back of Freecycle clothes, and shudder all you want, but there was a white bra that fit and I started wearing it.

So now all my underclothes are a mess. And I’m thinking of tossing a black pair of undies? Man. So then I’m thinking, okay, well, I’ll just buy some more black underwear at Ross (usually decent selection and $1.49 to $2.99 a pair….these last ones I’m tossing gave me seven years of good service). I’ll suck it up and toss the beige bra, because it’s not worn out but it’s just not so great, and I’ll toss the Freecycle bra, because if it’s something you don’t want to admit to wearing, maybe you shouldn’t wear it, right?? And besides it’s wearing out.

Which leaves me with the colored underwear. So I think to myself, well, I have sleep socks (anklet socks that are pretty much dead but are good for sleeping,) so I’ll just have sleep underwear.

And where does that leave me? I’m a crazy lady with different sets of underclothes for night and day. I'm also a crazy lady who writes about her drawers on a blog that people she knows in real life reads. Not gonna read this one to your friends, huh, Dad?

Budgets Keep Coming Up

December 12th, 2006 at 04:14 am

I am using a budget on My Challenge, because I do need to monitor spending pretty closely to achieve my goals. The mentions of budgets on other blogs and posts have interested me, because this budget is the first time I’ve used one, and I feel like I’ve been able to peek over the fence from No Budget Land into Budget Forest.

I track every penny I spend. I have done so since April 1998, so I can see that I had $10,304 in income in 1998, or that I spent $248 on auto service in 2002, or $225 on Books in 2004. It’s all there, every smart expense and every dumb expense.

I’ve never budgeted, though. My goal has been threefold: to always get a good deal on what I do buy, to avoid buying things that I don’t need, and to always put as much in savings as possible. In the eight years I have almost always saved much, much more than ten percent of my income; the times I haven’t have been when I’ve worked part time at minimum wage and had debt.

I’m not sure if I’ll keep budgeting after My Challenge is over. To be honest, I don’t need to. I don’t need to, as in, even pre-Challenge I was living well below my means. I don’t need to, in that I’ve always had a cushion and never been unprepared to pay a surprise car repair bill or the like. My income has gone up quite a bit over the last few years, over 300%, but my spending hasn’t even begun to approach that increase. That’s the benefit of being frugal. I could afford to buy coffee everyday now if it was important to me; I still brew my coffee at home on a free coffeepot with Grocery Outlet whole beans and stick the coffee in my beat up Stanley thermos I got for $5 at a garage sale. (Yeah, $5 is a lot for a thermos, but it was a Stanley so I went for it.) I get maybe 3 to 4 fancy coffees a year and enjoy them as treats.

I’m not anti-budget. I know some people who are spending more than they make, or getting unpleasantly surprised at Christmas or when other large expenses roll around, would be better off budgeting. I suppose I have a decision to make come March!

(For My Challenge I’m using the YouNeedaBudget spreadsheet (youneedabudget.com) that I bought from a savingadvice member. If I keep budgeting, I’ll stick with this program, because I like it.)

Good Day

December 10th, 2006 at 07:01 am

This week I walked to work four days out of five. On Friday I had people over to play poker. Today, I got together with a good friend, and we walked a couple miles and talked, and I even got a fancy pants coffee at a local place. Then My Guy, myself, Ms. Friend and Mr. Friend got together and had a grand time, having a cheese party. Mr. Friend is the cheese manager at the local co-op, and has all sorts of tasty cheese, and I added some. We had an aged blue “Costello,” an aged swiss, a gouda-like “lambchopper” an aged pepper corn jack “rumiano”, and brie, with two rustic breads, a variety of olives, and apple and pear.

I always adore food, and I’ve really been working at being more social, and I’ve very much wanted to walk more, so this has been a great week.

On the money front, a great time never needs to break the bank-a dip into the underused grocery money for some fancy cheese fits in fine with my budget, as all along I’ve been trying to prove that frugality certainly doesn’t equal deprivation. The cheese probably was more detrimental to the whole health thing, but man oh man do I love cheese.

I love it when a week goes well.

Walking to Work

December 7th, 2006 at 03:54 am

My Guy has been walking to work, and I’ve been a bit too. We've noticed that there is such a culture of driving that people always ask, “Need a ride?” “Car in the shop?” and the like. Clearly our co-workers are trying to be helpful, but it’s just a little funny that walking is seen as so odd. My Guy’s walk is longer, and even I fall into the trap. Mine is one mile one way, his is 2-1/2 miles on way. So on a morning I walk, I’ll say, “You can take my car today so you don’t have to walk!” What is wrong with me? Walking to and from work should be seen as lucky-lucky that a person lives so close to work. It was a little cold today, but it felt a little brisk, and I got to really wake up on the way to work.

Not Stopping for Shopping

December 6th, 2006 at 05:52 am

My wild spending this month is $400 rent, a $5 burrito, $7.82 on groceries, and $79 for my car registration. I am not sure how people spend so often. A large part of my ability to live on a small income has got to be to be my lack of desire to shop, to run errands that require expense. The burrito My Guy picked up, and the car registration I paid online, so only the $7.82 was spent “outside.”

How do people get coffee and soda and an item here and there all the time? Forget the cost; even if I had a gift card, I’m just not into going and buying. On a Saturday I can enjoy garage sales, but other than that, shopping is more of a chore. Being at airports lately has reduced me to the “buy a single beverage” state; my norm is to have club soda in my car, at work, and in my purse. A large part is the cost, but there is also the convenience...I don’t want to be bothered stopping by the store or vending machine if I’m thirsty. Beverages are a big part, but not all of it. A run to Walgreen’s for just nail polish? I use the stuff (toes) but I would not use my work break to run to the store for only that item.

Why am I riled up? Dunno. Just saw a lot of single purchase store runs going on today. If you stopped and got a coffee today, relax, I’m not against it, I just really don’t understand it. You are a more patient and less lazy person than I.

My Average is Low!

December 5th, 2006 at 02:48 am

I’m spending an average of $979 a month! Whoo hoo!

$3,541.57 for my $20 Challenge-see below!

November figures are here, and I’m alive. You can see why I haven’t posted in a week...deep shame at my entertainment spending in November. $36.76! What was I thinking! Well, I kid, it’s not why I was gone a week and it’s not that bad a total. What is upsetting is not that I spent on entertainment, but that I spent a lot of it on takeout that did not give me pleasure. If I’d spent that money on seeing a show or something, I’d be perfectly happy to reduce spending in other areas to give myself pleasure.

Other areas did happen to be low. I spent so much on groceries in October that I needed little this month; the total even includes $25 in treats from Trader Joe’s (fancy soda, veggie booty, etc.) Health co-pays were much lower too-I get a lot of prescriptions by mail for three months at a time, so my expenses fluctuate.

The miscellaneous is postage. Long story. Well, no, just an uninteresting story.

I expect electric to jump in December; it has been cold enough in the house to see our breaths with ease, so we are doing some heater usage.

I don’t expect gifts to be too high in December; I have $26.25 going in, and I bumped my December gift budget to $40, so I have $66.25 to finish Christmas shopping. I am mostly done but I do have a couple big people left. We’ll see how it goes.



I spent $1592 a month last year. My savings are the difference, $1592-$1026 (see below) = $566 times 9 months = $5,094.

Add to that $233 in “savings” and $24.21 in my emergency fund, I’ve saved $5,351.21. If I take out what I spend in Europe, $1809.64, which is not part of my Challenge, I’ve saved $3,541.57 living on CA Minimum Wage for 9 months.

* My income is calculated as follows: CA minimum wage of $6.75 for 40 hours a week, at 4.33 weeks in a month, $1178 total. I’ve taken FICA and SDI (CA State Disability Insurance) out for a total of $1073. I had no extra income this month (no recycling) and no overspent categories from last month.
** When I originally began the Challenge March 2006 I assumed no federal or state tax liability. Wrong! I’d actually owe $47 a month, so I have to budget $95 a month to catch up. So my actual spendable income averaged over each month is my original calculation of $1073 less $47 for $1026.

***$757.87 is the sum of the positive numbers; that’s the amount I have banked and unspent for non-monthly expenses; this does NOT include my savings and emergency funds. It is obviously not what was budgeted less what was spent. Each month I budget for non-monthly purchases; for example, I budget $13 for AAA and car registration every month, but have yet to spend it because it has yet to be due. That’s why the balance is up to $117. I pay registration in December-so I’ve been preparing for my once a year $79 expense all year long.