Escape(d) Brooklyn

Tabula Rasa

2009-05-15T08:50:00.001-05:00

I've been giving a lot of thought to the future of this blog and I've decided that I need a clean slate: new city, fresh start, new blog. So now that I'm leaving NYC and have indeed "escaped Brooklyn" (the goal all along), this will be my last post here. I'm planning to take this blog offline so I can focus on renovating the Minneapolis mansion (quote unquote), adjusting to life with DH and my cats again, buying investment property, and, ahem, finding new employment.

It's been terrific having this forum to bitch/proselytize/share, and blogging has definitely helped me cope with feeling stuck in Brooklyn until DH finished school and I vested at my job. Blogging has also helped hold me accountable with my money, and for that I am thrilled! Even in a terrible economy, I feel like I've made great progress with saving and investing, and am on the right track. Thank you all for reading and for your many amazing and (mostly) supportive comments these past 29 months! It's been a long haul, but now I'm excited to move on to better things in Minneapolis.

(Plus I wouldn't want any prospective Twin Cities employers to stumble on this blog and say, "Wait, are you...?" I also made the mistake of telling some personal contacts about this blog back when I first started writing, but now that I'm moving I really, really want my privacy back.)

I expect I'll start a new blog eventually, perhaps focusing more on renovations, home design, and real estate investments. If you are interested in keeping up with me in Minneapolis -- and I hope you are! -- please e-mail me at escapebrooklyn (at) yahoo (dot) com. If and when I have a new blog up and running, I'll write you back to let you know.

I may even share before & after mansion pictures.

I've almost escaped!

2009-05-14T12:26:00.004-05:00

I just made perhaps the biggest deposit of my life into my checking account: $91,883. Hooray for finally cashing out on my apartment! I have to wait to get the last $5,000 after I've moved out (my attorney is holding it in escrow, lest I trash my apartment because the buyer drove me so nuts), but otherwise I'm pretty much done. Well, other than fighting with the buyer's mommy/broker about that escrow situation...long story that I don't have time or energy to tell!

But I am happy about the proceeds from our apartment and altogether it's a little more than the $94k I was expecting. I have to get a $33,000 cashier's check to use for the 20% down payment on the Minneapolis mansion, and then I'm going to transfer the rest into two new ING accounts I created: one for renovations and one for emergencies/other real estate. There was some drama at my bank about whether the checks I deposited would clear in time to get the $33k for our closing on Monday. My deposit included two cashier's checks, which they tried telling me required three business days to clear! Then when I spoke to the manager about it, she gave me a hard time because technically that wasn't the branch where I opened my account. Uh, what's the point of using a mega-bank if you can only go to the first branch to get decent service?

Course, all that money didn't mean I'm going to change my cheapskate ways. Last night I walked 30 minutes each way to a restaurant in lieu of paying $4 for a round trip subway ride, since my unlimited card expired and I'm just paying for rides as needed. Fortunately it was a beautiful day and nice to walk through Prospect Park one last time.

And DH woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning to get to the Minneapolis airport on public transit, rather than splurge on a $20 cab ride. Yes, this money definitely isn't going to our heads.

It's funny -- I expected to feel more thrilled with the money and more freaked out about the move (I am, after all, leaving NYC), but instead I just feel ready. Ready to be done and gone. People keep saying I'll miss NYC and will come back to visit soon, but I just think, nah... It's time.

Goodbye, Brooklyn

2009-05-13T07:54:00.003-05:00

As I approach my moving day (Saturday!), I'm reflecting on my time in New York. I was told three things before I moved to here seven years ago:

1. The city's a toilet.
2. The people are animals.
3. NYC's great if you're really young or really rich.

I thought I would find otherwise. (And at age 26, I was willing to put up with a lot more.)

But one of the favorite things I heard about NYC went something like this: In California, everyone is your friend first until they prove otherwise; in New York, everyone is your enemy first until they prove otherwise. You can imagine what an exhausting approach to life that sort of mindset is.

NYC enticed me with the promise that if you just do X, things will be okay.

If you just make more money...
If you just get a bigger place...
If you just buy a country house...
If you just move to Manhattan...

I kept chasing after this elusive X and guess what? It was still never okay. And then I realized, as the years flew by: Who wants to spend their life chasing after if onlys?

So now, at last, I'm making the break.

NYC is exciting and there's no place in the U.S. like it. I think everyone should live here -- for a brief time -- if they get the opportunity and have the desire. But when it's time to move on, it's time to move on. To better, saner things.

You can always come back and visit. (Although I probably won't...at least not any time soon.)

Just for fun, here are essays I've enjoyed over the years by people who had a similar "escape Brooklyn" experience:

Taxi! Get me outta here
My Misspent Youth
Loving and Leaving New York City
Goodbye to all that
Leaving New York
A Year of Epiphanies: The September 11th Effect
Au Revoir, Grande Pomme

And from this second place winner in the Vanity Fair Essay Contest:

New York is a noisy, dirty city dangling off the other edge of the same country. J lives in New York for reasons I cannot begin to fathom. To me, New York City is a good place to watch your life disappear as you struggle desperately to keep your head above water. Although J pays her own way as a twenty-something in New York City, she comes from money, and so I imagine that for her the sense of impending disaster living there is less acute than it would be for me, who comes from less money.

I was good but then I was bad

2009-05-12T14:08:00.005-05:00

I just resisted the urge to buy $5 peppermint foot spray when I stopped at the Body Shop for new mascara. I was so proud of myself for having willpower and not getting sucked into the Love Your Body point thing where you have to spend $20 to get one point, and also for not giving in to the cashier's encouragement to spend $30 for a "free" skin care set.

Except then I stopped at a drugstore, too, and blew $14 on two bottles of nail polish. Sigh. But I loved my recent mani/pedi so much that I decided to buy the exact same colors (amazing that I remembered their names and was able to find them) so I could do my nails myself (especially since I just threw out all my ancient nail polish when I was packing this weekend). I also figured this would help me resist the urge to get any more mani/pedis.

In case you're curious, I got "Russian Navy" (pictured) from Opi for my toes and "Mademoiselle" from Essie for my fingers. But I'm totally going to paint my fingernails blue, too, just as soon as I'm unemployed.

Most overpriced cities

2009-05-12T09:04:00.001-05:00

Whew! At least Minneapolis didn't make this Forbes list: America's Most Overpriced Cities

Vexed by gang wars and rising real estate prices, late rapper Tupac Shakur mused in 1996 that the overall cost of living in Los Angeles was so high he would almost rather “live life in the pen[itentiary]."

Though East Coast-West Coast gang violence has since subsided, life in the City of Angels remains far from affordable. Thanks to bloated housing prices, lofty living costs and unemployment rates among the highest in the nation, the Los Angeles metro area tops our list of America's Most Overpriced Cities.

At least residents of Los Angeles and the third-ranked Miami metro get to enjoy balmy evenings and sunny days at the beach. Residents of the second-most overpriced metro area, Chicago, get sweltering summers and near-Siberian winters on top of a 9.4% metro area unemployment rate and a cost of living trailing only Los
Angeles and New York.

At least someone is finally getting it right to put NYC in the top five. Although I'm not sure how Chicago came out more overpriced than NYC. Philly and Portland (Ore) are also in the top 20, so it's a good thing we're not moving to those cities.

Speaking of expensive places, I watched more House Hunters episodes over the weekend. How come no one seems to spend less than $300k on houses (even school teachers and administrative assistants buying their first homes)?

Wanting More in the Windy City (Chicago)

Diverse Neighborhood (L.A.)

Beverly Hills Bound (L.A.)

Bye Bye, Chi-town (Indianapolis)

Boston Bound (Boston)

Settling in Seattle (Seattle)

Their First Home (Seattle)

Tired of Moving (Philly)

New Yorker brains on money

2009-05-12T07:50:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting feature in New York Magazine: Recession Culture

It’s a truism now that money was an engulfing, distorting force of the boom years, particularly in New York. At the level of urban development, it skewed our economy; at the level of culture, it misshaped values; at the level of individual behavior, it corrupted habits and discolored thoughts: This is your brain on money.

It turns out there are people who study our brains on money. Kathleen Vohs, a consumer psychologist at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, is preeminent among them, and for the sake of better understanding both the past and the future of our city, it’s useful to start by looking at what she’s found. Just thinking about money made her subjects less likely to help strangers struggling with their belongings. Just handling money made her subjects less sensitive to physical pain. My favorite experiment of hers, though, was one in which she divided her subjects into groups, one of which stared at a screensaver of floating dollar bills and another at a screensaver of exotic fish. Subjects were then asked whether they’d like to work on a task alone or with a partner. Eighty percent of those who’d been staring at the dollar bills chose to work alone. Eighty percent of those who’d been staring at the fish wanted to collaborate. (One wonders if the offices of AIG couldn’t have benefited from an aquarium or two.)

A few years ago, after Vohs presented some of her research at a conference, Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, approached her and pointed out that her research had shown that money elicited archetypal American traits: self-sufficiency, self-absorption, individualism. More to the point, though, it seems like Vohs’s findings proved that money elicited archetypal New York City traits. The common thread in all of them is that money primes people to be “self-insulating,” as she likes to say, or prone to burrow deep within themselves, whether for self-protection or self-aggrandizement. And where else in the country are people such a powerful amalgam of self-involvement and motivation? Vohs acknowledges as much when I ask her about this. “Well, sure,” she says. “You know, If you can make it there … ”
...
Dalton Conley, author of Elsewhere, U.S.A. and a sociologist at NYU, sometimes likes to compare New York to the United Arab Emirates. Wealthy people on a tiny island serviced by poor immigrants from neighboring countries—that’s what it is, essentially; it’s just that the island here is Manhattan, and the neighboring countries are … Queens. No one in their right mind would say that this recession will suddenly erase New York’s economic disparities. But one of its silver linings is that it might provide a brief window for people like Ande and Isaac to gain a toehold in this city. The middle class, long vanishing from New York but once its spine, has a chance to reclaim its place. Most brokers say their rentals are going for roughly 20 percent less this year. Manhattan home prices have fallen about the same. “And what that means,” says Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future, “is that people will have the opportunity to buy apartments and homes in neighborhoods other than the far Rockaways.”
...
New York, the land of the 24-hour gym, is the world capital of hedonic treadmills. The opportunity to covet new stuff presents itself in every shop window, on every street corner, on every wall in every window we glimpse as we’re wandering along Museum Mile. In The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz describes with vivid persuasiveness the problems that visit those of us who seek the best of everything, or “maximizers”: second-guessing, susceptibility to disappointment, an inability to savor. In study after study, they’re far more miserable than “satisficers,” or those who are willing to make do. “And my suspicion,” says Schwartz, “is that New York, because it offers so many consumer options, creates maximizers.”

Our own billionaire mayor, who lives just off Museum Mile, is the perfect embodiment of this form of excess. For the last two decades, he’s been acquiring portions of the townhouse next to his, though his Beaux Arts limestone already contains 7,500 square feet of space. (He’s now at 12,500 and counting.) And let’s not forget that third term he seeks, a prize he so badly covets he pushed through legislation to make it possible. In most cases—and most places—a political term isn’t a commodity, but Bloomberg turned it into one, spending $74 million of his personal fortune on his first election and $77 million on his second, and now gearing up to spend $80 to $100 million on his third.

Schwartz hardly regards this recession as a welcome development. But he hopes it will at least make people begin to recognize the value of experience over material accumulation. “There’s good evidence people get more pleasure from experiences than possessions,” he explains. “So constraining people materially might make them more satisfied with their lives.”

Treats for me

2009-05-11T14:08:00.004-05:00

I'm totally getting the heated towel bar and porch swing featured in this Money Magazine article: A Taste of Luxury, at Very Little Cost

Like all good things, every shower must come to an end. That's a lot easier to take if there's a warm towel waiting for you. A unit such as the Traditional Towel Warmer at bedbathandbeyond.com ($160) can be mounted on the wall or stand by itself on the floor. And it uses less power than a light bulb.

Tools: a stud finder and power drill (if you're hanging it from a wall).
Time to do the job: about an hour.

Blast from the past

2009-05-11T11:03:00.008-05:00

One of the joys of packing ("joy?" ha!) is stumbling across old financial data. Well, that and finding the Trader Joe's sunscreen that I knew I bought last year just days after finally caving and spending $5.99 at the overpriced organic grocery store for new sunscreen because I couldn't find the other one. (Grrr!)

But highlights of my financial records include a Morgan Stanley questionnaire I filled out in February of 2004. I think this was a handout I had gotten a year or two before during a "free" meeting with a financial advisor there. (This was the meeting that changed my financial life after this woman told me I was "way behind" and lectured me to make more money.) I am shocked by the numbers I had written. Note that I was 29 28 years old, ~~about to get married~~ not yet planning to get married, making very little money. DH and I were also saving to buy our first apartment:

Assets
Savings account: $8,842
Retirement: $9,000
Household furnishings: $1,000
Other (film cameras/editing equipment): $2,000

TOTAL ASSETS: $21,342

Liabilities
Student loans: $41,853

TOTAL LIABILITIES: $41,853

NET WORTH: -$20,511

It's pretty awesome that someone's net worth can basically increase more than $200,000 in a little over five years -- even in this horrible economy. Most of that is due to my Brooklyn co-op's appreciation and my aggressive, pre-tax retirement savings. Thank you, housing market bubble.

I also found a summary of my money from 2003 in preparation for the financial planner meeting. My money was listed as follows:

Investments
Savings (ING 1.8%) $2,800 (Monthly contribution $250)
Roth IRA $3,000 (Monthly contribution $0)
403(b) $1,000 + $3,000 bonus (Monthly contribution $400)

Debt
Student loans $43,000 (Monthly payment $290)

Goals

Pay for CUNY Graduate School ($4,800/year)
Pay down student loans
Maximize retirement savings
Maximize long-term savings for real estate

I remember being so proud of myself at the time but those numbers must have looked pretty pathetic to a Morgan Stanley person! I think I was earning $20k or $30k/year back then. I also recall that those student loans felt so insurmountable. (And still do...a little.)

The advisor's hand written notes included contributing the max to my Roth IRA in 2004, reducing the interest rate on my student loans to 3.1% from 3.5% (couldn't happen because I had already consolidated), saving 10% of my income for a down payment on a co-op, and some numbers that I think was meant to be the amount of money we had to save to buy a $300,000 apartment (300,000-60,000/2=30,000). I think she meant that DH and I would each need to save $30,000 to put 20% down on a $300k apartment. (Or maybe she meant that I would need to earn $60k to afford a $300k place?)

Fortunately we ended up putting 10% down for a $125,000 apartment, so we needed to save much less.

She had also drawn a thick black line through "Pay for CUNY graduate school ($4,800/year)," since I obviously had enough education and didn't need to pay for any more! Good advice.

Lastly, I found an Excel spreadsheet that included a breakdown of my expenses as a percentage of my $30k salary. Here's what I was spending every month back then:

Rent: $475 (19%)
Student loans: $290 (12%)
Saving for house (er, co-op): $250 (10%)
Retirement: $600 (24%)

Total spending: $1,615/month (64%)

It's nice to see that I was a retirement nut even then and that my overhead -- other than my student loans -- was low. Clearly I've been obsessed with money even longer than I realized but at least my hard work is paying off. Slowly but surely...

Weekend money report

2009-05-11T07:58:00.000-05:00

I'm whittling down my spending as I get closer and closer to my big move:

$25 MetroCard (weekly)
$45 Groceries
$16 Foster cat food
$1 Toilet paper
$13 Pizza Friday
$4 Lunch Saturday

Total: $104

Alas, I was hoping foster cats #4 and #5 would be adopted by now so I wouldn't have to buy them any more food, but no such luck. I have one family interested in #5 but still no home on the horizon for #4. Know anyone? He's a cutie.

Most of my weekend was spent packing so I didn't have a lot of time to spend money. Just four more days left of work and five more days in NYC! And did I mention we'll be closing on the mansion one week from today? I can't wait!

Weekend articles

2009-05-09T17:40:00.004-05:00

Here are my favorites from this weekend's New York Times:

In a Vanderbilt's Backyard

36 Hours in Philadelphia

Research: The Traveler's Best Friend

For Gay Couples, Obstacles to Health Insurance
Trimming Health Care Costs for the Family Pet
Eat Quickly, for the Economy's Sake
Frugal Portland
Losing Job May Be Hazardous to Health
Far From Over
A Merchant Watches as Bed-Stuy Gentrifies
New York Charges Rent for Working Homeless
Manhattan Calling
The Family That Job-Hunts Together
Hate at First Sight
More Than a Numbers Game
Shift From Spending to Saving May Be Slump's Lasting Impact
Free Fall's Over, but Where Are We Landing?
Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work
Recession Fails to Halt Spring Charity Benefits
Moonlighting Can Pay, but Consider the Costs
Scammed? Ignored? Rebuffed? Read On

Ah, the single life

2009-05-08T12:42:00.004-05:00

I was kind of surprised by something in this Yahoo article: Dating Tips: 9 Essentials for Single Women

#6: A Financial Planner
Most of our mothers went from their father's house to the sorority house to their husband's house. Not today's single gal. Most of us make enough money to live alone, give to charity, and still go on that amazing weekend getaway with the girls. But after awhile, it's time to get smart. Start planning for the future. And that's where a financial advisor comes in. Even in these troubled times, investing in the future is a safe bet.

That's a refreshing change from just worrying about how our boobs look. But alas, now that my single days are coming to an end (I'll be back with the old man in Minneapolis next weekend!), I won't have to read up on this sort of thing. However for you real single ladies, New York Magazine offers this: More Proof That You Have to Leave New York City to Find a Boyfriend

My plan for the downturn

2009-05-08T08:44:00.003-05:00

Laura Rowley's latest Yahoo column details what people are doing to get by in this economy: Maneuvering Through the Downturn

A new Yahoo! Finance survey finds consumers have hunkered down and adjusted their lifestyles in anticipation of a protracted economic downturn. More than half of respondents expect the recession to last three to five years, and they are cutting back accordingly: 57% have slashed spending -- on everything from dining out, travel, and clothing to gifts, electronics, and movies. (See chart.) The survey of 2,000 consumers was conducted in April by Yahoo! and Decipher.

Moms such as Seattle-based Melanie Apostol are leading the charge -- 65% say they are spending less. The 38-year-old, who has a seventh grader and is expecting another child this month, was laid off last fall from her job at a university, following big losses in its endowment fund. Within a month, she had found another position in communications at a high-tech company, but she is on a contract basis and pays for Cobra health coverage out-of-pocket. Her husband is a mortgage broker whose business has declined with the housing bust.

"I've been tracking spending religiously since the beginning of the year,” says Apostol, who manages her budget on an Excel spreadsheet. Vacations, clothing, and entertainment expenses have been reduced, and, like nearly half of respondents, Apostol is driving less -- “Doing ten more errands per trip to save on gas,” she says. She is also among the two-thirds of respondents who use coupons, in this case, “the entertainment coupon books where you can go to a restaurant and get one meal for free,” she says.

DH and I are preparing for a tough summer. Not only will I be out of a job, but DH's hours will be cut 20% for three months (with a commensurate loss in pay). It will be nice to have him home on Fridays, but boy will that pay cut hurt. The hope is that DH's organization will have enough cash flow by the end of the year to give all employees a bonus that would make up for the summer loss, but you never know.

However, our overhead is low enough that DH should be able to still pay for everything -- especially once we find someone to sublet our Minneapolis rental apartment -- and I have a healthy savings cushion so I'll be able to continue paying my own student loan. I expect DH's monthly net income will drop from $2,700 to about $2,160 (after maxing out his 403b account). That should be budgeted as follows:

$1,250 Mortgage/taxes/insurance
$300 DH's student loan
$400 Groceries/toiletries
$400 Roth IRA

Total is $2,350 so we have a shortfall of about $190, which I can cover with savings for three months. We'll also have money from the sale of our co-op parked in ING that can be used for emergencies. As long as DH doesn't lose his job, we should be fine. And if DH loses his job, it means the company went out of business.

This is just extra incentive to buy an income producing duplex stat.

Speaking of lousy customer service

2009-05-07T14:52:00.002-05:00

Remember how I recently maxed out my Roth IRA with a lump sum $3,333.28 contribution? Well, Vanguard took that amount out of my checking account not once, but twice! So now I'm way overdrawn on my checking account and it's turning into a fiasco to get them to fix it.

I called Vanguard yesterday and a nice woman told me the second deduction would automatically be reversed with my bank because it exceeds the $5k Roth IRA contribution limit. She said the money would be back in my bank account today. Great.

Well, today the money wasn't back in my account, so I called my bank and asked them if they saw anything coming in from Vanguard. My bank said they showed no record of it being reversed and that the money was definitely deducted twice, like my online statement shows. (Once on May 1 and again on May 4.)

So I called Vanguard back and had some condescending man tell me that their records only show it being deducted once, on May 1. When I explained the situation calmly and asked him when they could reverse the May 4 deduction so the money was put back in my account, he just kept repeating that the money had only been taken out once. His computer told him so.

When I less calmly explained that I was looking at my bank statement at that very moment and that Vanguard most definitely had taken the money out of my account again on May 4 (and that I just spoke with Neil from my bank who confirmed this as well), the obnoxious Vanguard guy just kept re-stating that that was not true.

Okay, so if he tells me that, it must be right. I'll just go away quietly, less three grand. Not.

I asked to speak to a supervisor. Maybe I would make more sense to a supervisor? Maybe the supervisor would be a woman? Instead of a patronizing, ineffective man? (And I'm not a man hater! But I am tired of these finance guys talking to me like I'm an idiot. Clearly they do not realize that I am Escape Brooklyn, someone who's had a PF blog for more than two years, and who knows a little something about online banking. So there.)

I immediately offered to send the supervisor my bank account statement as proof that the money had indeed been deducted from my account twice. (Since I have nothing better to do today, you know.) I just faxed that and am waiting for them to resolve this matter. At least the supervisor didn't talk to me like I was crazy or dismiss me outright.

It's funny -- and I know it's not much in the big scheme of the uber-rich -- but I'm about to have $94k from the sale of my apartment and I'm also about to roll over another $75k or so from my 403(b) into a Roth IRA account. You would think Vanguard would want my business. But if they keep talking to me like I'm an idiot and screwing up four figure transactions, I'm going to look elsewhere for investment options.

For the record

2009-05-07T11:52:00.006-05:00

Okay, everyone, you are my witness. Here is what DH just e-mailed me in response to my concern that we might kill each other during the mansion renovation process because DH really doesn't handle stress well:

I have decided you get to make the choices and that way we won't fight over it. You did a good job with the apartment.

Ha! It's there! In writing. So in six months when we're fighting like cats and dogs over what to do with one of the many rooms, I am going to refer to THIS POST. I get to make all the choices!

And here's another funny e-mail exchange. This one is from yesterday after everything with our Minneapolis closing happened so fast:

Escape Brooklyn: "Is life in Minneapolis really going to be this easy compared to life here in this hellhole?"

DH: "YES!!!"

Sounds good to me.

A tale of two closings

2009-05-07T07:50:00.007-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it is official. I am actually going to escape Brooklyn. I know, we thought this day would never come, and at the rate we were going on this co-op crap I certainly expected to be stuck here indefinitely (my own private purgatory).

But the closing is finally scheduled for next week.

However, this couldn't happen easily. Allow me to contrast the final days of scheduling a Brooklyn co-op closing with our experience buying a Minneapolis foreclosure.

Our Brooklyn buyer was supposed to close by April 3. It is now May 7. The board interview was supposedly the last thing keeping me here, except he was approved by the board April 13. More than three weeks later -- after my attorney told me the closing could happen "like that" (snap) following board approval -- I got a frantic call from my incompetent real estate agent (#2) telling me that the co-op building's attorney is swamped and will need at least another 2-3 weeks to get everything ready for closing. Which practically pushes us into June.

Incompetent agent (#2) has no solutions, of course. She's just calling to tell me the problem and expect me to pull an easy solution out of my ass. That's what she's getting paid 6% for, of course. When I suggest that she might want to follow-up with the managing agent or the board president to make the closing happen, she has to leave me additional messages asking for their phone numbers because of course she doesn't have them. (I've e-mailed them to her at least twice already.)

But once again, DH to the rescue, even though he most certainly is NOT getting paid 6% and is actually swamped himself in another state. Just like he made sure the board interview happened because he's friendly with our co-op board's president, he had to make sure the co-op's building's attorney knew that there was No Way In Hell we were waiting another 2-3 weeks to close. We're scheduled to close on a house in Minneapolis on May 27 and need the damn co-op money!

Plus, I gave notice at my job last month so at some point, I actually need to leave. Everyone's been asking me what the hell I'm still doing here, a question I'm wondering myself.

So no thanks to my Brooklyn real estate agent or attorney -- both of whom are happy to take my money while doing as little work as possible -- the closing is finally scheduled. It only took us from a first open house in early September until mid-May to actually sell our friggin' apartment. Or from early January until now with incompetent agent (#2).

Halfway across the country, in a happy land far away, our Minneapolis agent has shown us countless properties since January, stayed late with us on a Sunday night to make sure our offer got submitted for a foreclosure (after we gave up on another foreclosure), followed-up and resubmitted our offer when a competing offer fell through, and handled every single detail until our closing was scheduled for the end of May. Our agent didn't need to call DH or me with any problems at all. And foreclosures are supposed to be difficult.

And when DH asked if we could move that closing up a week so as to only have to unload our moving truck once, our Minneapolis agent immediately sent a request to the title company, who said no problem, and immediately heard back from the bank, who also said no problem. That all happened in less than twenty minutes over e-mail.

Methinks life in Minneapolis is going to be a whole lot better.

This actually reminds me of our experience buying a mattress earlier this year. I wanted to buy one at Macy's in Brooklyn but have it delivered to DH in Minneapolis. I knew exactly what I wanted, so I went into the store, tried the bed, and placed the order. The Brooklyn sales guy got the commission just for entering it into the computer.

However, when I called to confirm the Minneapolis delivery address, there were all sorts of problems with the order and no one seemed able to fix the address or understand what I wanted. I talked to at least 2 people at Macy's 1-800 number and sat on hold forever. It wasn't until I called the Macy's store in Minneapolis directly, and talked to a sales guy there, that I actually got any help. With me on the phone, the Macy's guy, John, re-did the entire order, made sure the commission went to the Brooklyn sales guy (even though John probably deserved it more than the Brooklyn guy did), and arranged the delivery. John was super nice and polite the entire time, even though he wasn't getting anything out of this sale. But the kicker was, a week or so after the mattress had been delivered without a hitch, I actually got a handwritten thank you note in the mail from John, thanking me for my business. I nearly had a heart attack.

And that, dear readers, is why I'm moving to Minneapolis.

On a related note, our Philly real estate agent (who is also terrific compared to these morons working the streets of NYC) has taken care of everything with the sale of our Philly property, including unloading the old furnace from the basement. When DH was talking to him about the process of selling the Philly house, raising a lot of concerns after our horrific experience selling our Brooklyn co-op, the Philly agent just said, "You're really not used to having things go your way, are you?"

Uh, after seven years in NYC, most definitely not. Is it that obvious?

Hulu is the best invention ever

2009-05-06T14:20:00.004-05:00

I'm currently obsessed with watching House Hunters on Hulu. Now that I'm actually moving to a city where I can afford a real home, it's so exciting to watch other people go through the process! However, I'm curious about how real estate prices have been affected since most of these episodes were probably taped pre-2008 crash.

So far I've watched Moving Back to Minnesota, Finally, A Home, Eco-friendly in Oregon, Searching In Austin, and Goodbye, City Life! But what I want to know is, where are seasons 1-23???

I also want to know where are the affordable fixer uppers? All the homes I've watched are pricey showcases! I can't help but wonder what's happened to the real estate couple who paid over a million for a place in Austin, or the Minneapolis investment banker who paid $1.2M.

Benefits of sharing

2009-05-06T07:48:00.006-05:00

At first I thought MP Dunleavey's latest MSN column was going to focus on homes, but then I saw it's more interesting than that: Why own when you can rent?

What, exactly, is transumerism?

The transumer philosophy is largely based on a "leasing lifestyle," according to an analysis by Trendwatching.com, a global trend-spotting company based in the Netherlands. Rather than spending your money on individual things, which you then have to keep (suddenly an old-fashioned idea), you purchase access to an array of objects and experiences. It can save time as well as cash: The more you own, the more you have to worry about, maintain and upgrade.

"We're seeing the rejection of the accumulation society," says Kristina Dryza, a trend consultant based in London, in her report "Temporariness" (.pdf file).

Trendwatching has been tracking the lifestyle rental trend for a few years now, and CEO Reinier Evers says the worldwide recession is making nonownership more appealing.

"The 'save money' aspect of the transumer trend is definitely making it more popular," he says.
Some say it's better for you, too.

"You can get rid of the stuff that is clogging your life," said Eric Ginsberg, the vice president of marketing for BookSwim, a Netflix-like service for books. "Free it up for what you actually want now, and when you're done with those things you can go ahead and get rid of them without the constant cost and expenses."

I love this approach to car ownership. Minneapolis' Hour Car program has been a dream for DH and me, since we can have easy access to a car when we need it without the ongoing bills and maintenance issues. We pay something like $8/hour, including gas and insurance! And we get to drive a hybrid.

Also, I never buy DVDs anymore because I know I can just get them on Netflix.

Blah blah blah....gentrification....blah blah

2009-05-05T13:43:00.002-05:00

Here's an interesting (hackneyed?) segment on NPR: Change in Brooklyn

Actress and activist Rosie Perez and writer and filmmaker Nelson George discuss the importance of mom and pop shops, stoops, civic gathering places, and neighborhood character in a changing city.

And some comments, which are much better than over at Brownstoner:

I think one of the striking things about the gentrification in Williamsburg is that the hipsters/arrivestas do not really embrace the old Italian restaurants and shops that have been there for decades. You essentially have two neighborhoods - the older community that still get their coffee and pastries from Fortunato Brothers or eat in one of the old Italian restaurants and then the new people who have imported their own scenester havens restaurants, bars, and yoga parlors. It makes me wonder why they moved to the neighborhood to begin with.

...

Nostalgia will kill us all. In 25 years what will the W-Burg hipster's babies remember? And who cares? Not all the change is good and not all is bad. Gee whiz, aren't there people who know their neighbors and block associations still in existence? I love Rosie, but what exactly is the point of all this? This discussion is all over the place. New York City changes every decade? Wow! Stop the presses!
And dude (caller), what about the Spkie Lee-ization of Brooklyn. He's had a part in that, too!

...

Although I wholeheartedly agree that Brooklyn and the city in general have lost large parts of its soul, I'm not sure why people have waited so long to point this out. This has been happening for well over ten years in full force, and I can't help but wonder why people are only now starting to speak out. When Guiliani started "cleaning up" the city, New Yorkers were openly happy even though it was clear that this cleaning up meant dislocation for many lower income and minority New Yorkers. Bloomberg has only made things worse by openly wooing millionaires/billionaires into the city at the expense of making the city livable for middle and working class New Yorkers who have been shoved out. You don't need to be a sociologist to know that people with money aren't interested in community, they're interested in maintaining their investments. I only wish that New Yorkers who sold their brownstones to the highest bidder would have thought a little more about the importance of maintaining community, rather than lining their pockets. The result: the city is a hollow shell of bankers, tourists and rich kids posing as artists. The truth: New Yorkers have no one to blame for this but themselves.

...

I am a white 28 year old male who moved to Fort Greene 3 years ago specifically to escape the kind of sanitized and racially homogeneous options I had in New York. When I moved here, I cherished the neighborhood feel and relationships I built with my neighbors. Over the last few years, I've seen the makeup change dramatically, and I must say, I hate it. The newcomers may look like me, but I have to say I don't really welcome them. I wonder if the loss of community stems from the unwillingness by residents to embrace new arrivals, and the new arrivals subsequently feeling unwelcome and un-neighborly.

...

Brooklyn is one of the most racist places in this country.

Personally, I tend to think that people buy the "best" real estate they can afford at the time (however they define best). Nobody gets everything they want so it's a question of prioritizing what's important and finding a neighborhood that meets [most of] those needs. And with housing prices being what they are in NYC (and in many other cities), that usually means someone's getting priced out of somewhere and that neighborhoods have to evolve. But that being said, unbridled development and a lack of affordable housing -- especially in NYC -- are hurting neighborhoods. And so some of us are just choosing to leave.

Bad news for the young'uns

2009-05-05T13:00:00.002-05:00

Here's some depressing news from MSN: Why Gen Y might never retire

Seasoned investors also say it's a shame because young investors could potentially amass a fortune by being aggressive in bad times like these. And they're likely to need a fortune, because of crumbling public and private pension systems that other generations were able to lean on to help support them in their old age.

Yet scared-rabbit investing is almost all that Klontz is seeing, with 20- and 30-somethings putting their retirement money in bank accounts, Treasurys or gold to simply "preserve" their savings.

Other advisers report much the same. Their youthful clients maintain they're too poor to risk throwing good money after bad. Growth? It's hard to believe in.

When stock values dropped in half amid the mortgage mess, youthful investors fled to the safety of bank deposits.

They'll need to rely more on what they can create with their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts than their parents or grandparents have had to.

Whew. Good thing I'm Gen X. Our future's going to be so much better.

This is why I try to stick to a budget

2009-05-05T08:17:00.004-05:00

Here's some solid advice from Ben Stein's Yahoo column: Want Peace of Mind? Spend Prudently

But, I thought, there are some constants. Man's nature is a constant. Man is fearful, avaricious, cunning, shifty, and untrustworthy in many cases, and many of those men wind up in those big buildings on Wall Street. But man is also hardworking, daring, committed to innovation, and eagerly willing to help his fellow man -- and one or two of those people wind up on Wall Street, too.
However, the main reason I felt so worked up about being back where I was 40 years ago is because all those years have passed, so much of my life is over, and relatively little remains. And I have spent so much of my life worrying about money that it makes me want to weep. I didn't have to do it; I have never been even remotely close to broke (except for a few months when an old girlfriend talked me into buying a house I could not afford just before I lost my job with Richard Nixon). I live a life of plentiful food (way too plentiful), comfortable shelter, and a wonderful car -- and, more important, a loving family and dogs.
But I still worry endlessly about money, and this has largely to do with one immensely bad habit I have: I like to spend extravagantly. I am not sure why. My sister is extremely sensible about money, and so were my parents. Maybe my wild overspending is a reaction against my upbringing. Luckily, I have also been a wild over-earner.

However, I scare myself with my extravagance. I wish I had been more restrained -- then I would not have to worry as much about the future. Yes, of course I have savings. Yes, I am a careful finder of bargains. Yes, naturally I am exaggerating the situation -- but not by much.

I was dealt many hard blows by the tech crash of a decade ago and many cruel whacks by the crash of 2007-09 and the real estate correction. Many lies have been told to me by Wall Street and its minions. But the worst blows to my peace of mind have come from my own imprudence. Since my father died 10 years ago, there has been no one to restrain me and my bad habits. I wish I had a good financial planner who could gently guide my spending habits down to a sensible level.

If I may say so, this incredibly simple prescription -- spend prudently -- is so rarely observed and obeyed and so often transgressed that, if it could be corrected, it would send a wave of peace over the nation.

I wish I could see his net worth and monthly spending report!

Home Design Porn

2009-05-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

Continuing my renovations obsession, this week's New York Magazine is devoted to home design: Design Liberation: The 2009 Home Design Issue

There is no such thing as “school of” anymore. Home design’s evolution away from strictures, tradition, and everything-has-to-match dogma has eliminated that pigeonholing. Such a relief! Particularly since the most exciting work is being done by people who have liberated themselves from old orthodoxies, with a looser, wildly eclectic, inspiring, and vastly less costly aesthetic. (It’s also, often, pretty fun.) What label could possibly encompass.... the Future Perfect owner David Alhadeff’s bright-pink, treasure-filled Williamsburg apartment? (That color, Baker-Miller pink, was developed for use in detention centers; it’s meant to calm inhabitants.) Or the varied collection of creative director Richard Christiansen, who’s put down roots in a one-bedroom at the Bowery Hotel? The loft of Nicola Vassell, a director at Deitch Projects, could be an installation called Seventies Artist Space, except for the Obama “Hope” jacket hanging from one of the pegs that functions as her coat closet. And Maximilian Sinsteden, a college senior whose tiny dorm room is as precisely detailed as a Ralph Lauren showroom, is simply a fascinating talent in the making, a whirlwind who’s redecorated three times since we took his picture. Here you’ll see their interior spaces and others (and what all of them see from their windows, indicated by the tiny yellow “view” icon on the layout). The common thread isn’t how the people we selected decorate, but the freedom they feel about decoration. Delight, yes. Comfort, yes. Function, yes. Rules, no.

I also like the checkered backsplash featured in this Time Out New York home profile: 2BR Flatiron District. In the print magazine it looked more blue than gray.

Moralizing on bankruptcy

2009-05-04T09:51:00.003-05:00

**This is a sponsored post**

This New York Times article raised some interesting dilemmas about personal bankruptcy: Does God Want You to Be Bankrupt?

This week, yet another Washington debate over who deserves a break on their debts drew to a close. On Thursday, the Senate voted against allowing judges to adjust the terms of the mortgages of people filing for personal bankruptcy.
Scratch the surface of the opposition in these sorts of debates, and it tends to ooze moral righteousness. “People who get themselves in over their heads,” the upstanding declare, “need to bear some responsibility for their foolishness.”
Maybe so. But if we can’t pass legislation that gives us new tools to determine who should be eligible for debt forgiveness, we need to look elsewhere for written instruction. Given that large numbers of Americans take many of their moral cues from their spiritual beliefs, I decided to turn to the good books of some of the world’s great religions for guidance on the subject.

Religion aside (says the atheist), I tend to be torn on the issue of bankruptcy. On the one hand, I think people should be responsible for their debts and that there should be systems in place to facilitate that. But maybe I say that only because I am required to pay off my student loans and can't find a loophole to get out of them.

On the other hand, our beloved capitalist system is clearly not working for many people, and research by people like Elizabeth Warren shows that people who declare bankruptcy do so not because they had shopping sprees, but rather because essential things like medical debt got so out of hand. As someone with a chronic medical condition, I worry about that happening. So is bankruptcy providing a much needed, last resort option for people who are in desperate situations within a broken system?

I don't know the answer to that but I do know that I want to move to Holland. Or maybe Finland: What Finland can teach America about true luxury

Weekend money report

2009-05-04T08:06:00.010-05:00

I went out a little bit this weekend. Here's what I spent:

$7 Two condolence cards
$34 Groceries (including sunscreen for $5.99 because I was too lazy to go to Trader Joe's)
$36 Clothes (Bathing suit and sweater on clearance)
$13 Pizza Friday night
$12 Movie Saturday night
$13 Dessert and coffee Saturday night
$7 Lunch Saturday and extra bagels
$1 Contribution for tip at brunch Sunday (friend's treat)

Total: $123

I forgot how amazing Junior's cheesecake is. Their cherry cheesecake is almost enough to keep me in Brooklyn -- almost.

I'd like to take this opportunity to bitch about people and their total lack of manners. Yes, I realize I sound like an old fuddy duddy, but if I have to deal with one more person who blows off a meeting time and thinks it's okay because they can call/text me after the fact, I'm going to scream. Or at least call DH and bitch for another forty-five minutes about how rude people are nowadays.

Friday night a woman was supposed to come over and meet foster cat #5. (I still have two foster cats and am desperately hoping we can find them permanent homes before I move.) She told me she'd be over at 7:00 p.m., which I confirmed again with her that afternoon.

Then at 6:00 p.m. she called me and said she was running late. Could she come at 7:45 instead? Fine.

Then at 7:30 she texted me that she would be probably even later. What does that mean? Maybe 8:30 or 9:00, she says. Totally not fine, but how can I say no? I need a home for these cats, even though this woman is obviously a flake, and I'm home anyway.

Then at 8:50 she texts me asking what city I live in, since she's just leaving and plugging my address into her GPS device. Jesus christ! She finally showed up at 9:30. Oh, and it turns out she's like 16 years old -- in high school -- and totally NOT getting one of my foster cats. Sigh.

But the saga continues. On Sunday a woman -- a grown-up woman -- was supposed to give me a call at 10:00 a.m. to set a time for her to come over and meet foster cat #4. She didn't call. So I left her a message because I was planning to head out for brunch. She finally called back at 11:30 a.m. and said she'd like to come over at 2:30. Fine, I'd make sure to be home by then.

Well, 3:20 comes around and this woman is still nowhere to be seen. No calls, no texts, nada. So I finally call her, since even though I hate to be pushy with these prospective adopters (you can't force anyone to take a cat, after all), I have been sitting around my apartment since 2:20 waiting for her to show up. And I'm pissed off at how inconsiderate she is.

She answers the phone out of breath and totally apologetic. She has all these excuses: she couldn't get her phone out to call me, she was at the grocery store, she doesn't have a car so she has to take her bike, and it's raining so she's soaking wet. Well, she ain't going to get any sympathy from me!

I haven't had a car in seven years and I do all my shopping on foot or on bike or on public transit. And if it's raining out, I dress appropriately or wait until it stops raining. And if I tell someone I'll come over to their home at 2:30, I show up. Or at least have the common courtesy to phone them in advance to let them know the plans have changed. I wouldn't be calling/texting after the fact to change things around.

But maybe I'm the anomaly, I don't know. I'm just tired of having people waste my time.

On the positive side, when this woman finally did show up, she was great so hopefully she'll adopt one or both of these cats. But she's also in her mid-forties, so she's old enough to be considerate.

Weekend articles

2009-05-02T15:29:00.001-05:00

Here are my favorites from this weekend's New York Times:

The Rent Is All Paid Up, but Eviction Still Looms
Goal Is College. Hurdle Is Financial Aid.
Don't Ask. You Can Afford It.
Keep Donations Flexible Now to Avoid Conflict Tomorrow
Same Data, Conflicting Forecasts
Where Money Was Flaunted, Now It's Budgeted
I'm Honored. No, Actually, I Can't Afford It.
Going Dutch
Immaterialism
Snark Attack
The Honor of Your Cash Is Requested
The 10 Percent Hurdle
Musicians Preferred; Loud Music O.K.
How Lehman Got Its Real Estate Fix
Depression Scares Are Hardly New

Time to vote again

2009-05-01T10:01:00.006-05:00

I recently got my Vanguard proxy ballot in the mail and now feel all this pressure to vote. Even though it's kind of all Greek to me, I believe it's my duty as a citizen/shareholder to cast my ballot. Even if -- like with most elections lately -- I'm not really happy with the choices and don't think my vote will make much of a difference.

But I'm trying to understand what I'm voting for, exactly.

I have to decide whether to elect Trustees from their list of 10 people.
I have to approve updating the fund's fundamental policies regarding 7 issues.

I did some Googling to see if any smarter people out there could give me some advice. So far I came across this Bogleheads forum: Vanguard Proxy Proposal 2. Here are some highlights:

From Zane:

In general, it seems like what they want to do is replace various specific policies that exist now, and have accumulated over the decades, with very broad "We're allowed to do anything that's legal" policies. I guess I really don't have much choice but to trust them, but honestly it seems like companies have been able to get themselves into all kinds of trouble doing only legal things.

From Sam I Am:

What I took away from the proposal is that Vanguard's rules on various items are more stringent than the regulators, and they (Vanguard) want to loosen their current rules to match the regulators.
Now, honestly, why on earth would shareholders not want more stringent rules than the regulators impose?
I mean, it's like seeing your kids come home at 11:00 and complain "everyone" else is allowed to stay out to midnight, why can't we?
Given Vanguard's obvious growth and success, why or more specifically, how does Vanguard's more stringent rules hurt the shareholders?
I remain unconvinced that any loosening of Vanguard's rules would add value to my holdings.

From Blackwood:

I agree that the general intent of the changes is that the funds can do anything they want as long as it is not actually illegal. I have some concerns with that as a matter of principle. However, I voted with the company on all but two changes because:
In most cases, the changes were slight.
If I didn't trust Vanguard, I would invest elsewhere.

From Dan Kohn:

...I think Vanguard's goals are reasonable, which is to rationalize and consolidate the rules associated with each of their funds. Every divergence requires regulatory compliance efforts, and that means additional costs.
...I am going to give management my proxy to approve their proposals. I think that what protects my money is Vanguard's proven commitment to reasonable fund management, rather than any specific policy requirement. I'm inclined give management the benefit of the doubt, and to help them keep their costs as low as possible.

From Alex Frakt:

I just read it and am voting against all the Section 2 subproposals except for 2f. Every one of the proposals loosens existing strictures on investing in products that I do not want Vanguard to invest in.

Whether I trust Vanguard's management today is not the issue. I plan on investing with Vanguard for decades, so the management one or two generations down the line is my concern. As a former TIAA-CREF participant, I'm well aware of how little it takes for management to shrug off 90 years of institutional history.

So why should I give additional powers to these future decision makers when Vanguard has failed to demonstrate any legitimate need for the change? At the end of every subproposal there is a statement, "The funds do not intend to change their approach to ________ in response to the modification of this policy." Well, if they don't intend to do anything with it, why not leave it alone?

From AZRunner:

It is far easier to administer an effective compliance program when you have consistency across the various funds. A Byzantine system of rules increases costs and increases the probability of mistakes.

Augh! This doesn't help me at all! Do I want to be my usual cynical, distrustful self and just vote against everything and everyone, assuming they're loosening the rules to take advantage?

Or do I want to continue to trust Vanguard's management and assume they're only making these changes to make things easier and continue to keep costs down?

I have until July 2 to decide. What do you all think?

Escape(d) Brooklyn

Tabula Rasa

I've almost escaped!

Goodbye, Brooklyn

I was good but then I was bad

Most overpriced cities

New Yorker brains on money

Treats for me

Blast from the past

Weekend money report

Weekend articles

Ah, the single life

My plan for the downturn

Speaking of lousy customer service

For the record

A tale of two closings

Hulu is the best invention ever

Benefits of sharing

Blah blah blah....gentrification....blah blah

Bad news for the young'uns

This is why I *try* to stick to a budget

Home Design Porn

Moralizing on bankruptcy

Weekend money report

Weekend articles

Time to vote again

This is why I try to stick to a budget