My Open Wallet

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-23T13:22:00.002-05:00

My goodness, it's been a busy month. So much for my good intentions of posting at least once a week! I can't say I've had any exciting financial news to report. Here's some off-the-cuff items!

At Thanksgiving, I got one final check for a couple hundred dollars that was the final settlement of my great-aunt's estate.

I've been finding that my cash balance in Pocket Money /Quicken is often way off, by several dollars or more. I'm still pretty good about tracking every penny of my spending so this is starting to make me paranoid. Is there a bug in the program? Is someone stealing money out of my wallet? It's weird.

My year end net worth goal of $600k just isn't going to happen. I'm still saving a good portion of my earnings, but the stock market has been so up and down this year.

I've done all my holiday gift shopping and probably have spent a bit less than usual, though I haven't totaled everything up just yet. I gave small gifts to a few people in the office. I bought my niece and nephew each a sweater, two books, and some wacky wax stuff you can make little sculptures with. My sister and I will give our mom an iPhone for Xmas. I'm not giving my extended family any gifts as I won't see them this year. Sweetie and I are taking a little trip over the holidays that is basically our present to each other. Though of course there have also been veiled mentions of "a few other little things" that have my all anxious about how little those other things are compared to the other little things I bought! But I guess holiday gifts are no fun if you take ALL the surprise element out of it!

Best wishes to all of you and your families for a happy, healthy New Year!

Is There a Point to Being Frugal and Trying to Save?

2011-11-27T09:05:00.001-05:00

A commenter left this question on my last post, and I thought it was worth answering separately:

Can I ask you a question, in regards to some long term investments?

I recently did some calculations and the results are very much frustrating, to be brutally honest.
Have a look yourself - they are all published.

If you invest $ 40, 000 a year over 35 years, at modest inflation rate of 2% and administration fee of 1-2% you need stock market to perform at 4% just to preserve value of your money and higher to gain anything.

This means that you are only preserving money you are investing at a very high risk. So it is just plain wisdom - is there a point to be frugal and try to save, if you ended up loosing money?

Feeding financial industry and no living your life in full?

I definitely understand the concern about feeding the financial industry, which seems more and more rigged in favor of the rich and well-connected. And yes, investing has risk. You could look at the scenario this person describes and say "well, historically, the stock market has performed better than 4% on average during many periods," and you could also observe that it has performed much worse during other periods.

But here's my analysis:
If you save and invest $40,000 a year over 35 years and the market totally tanks beyond all expectations and inflation skyrockets and you trust a Bernie Madoff, you could end up with ZERO.

But if you DON'T save and invest $40,000 a year over 35 years and instead spend all that money on "living your life in full," you will DEFINITELY end up with ZERO.

Of course, "ZERO" is your cash balance and doesn't factor in comfort and pleasure and memories. As always, I advocate a balanced approach between using some of your money to enhance your life now, and saving some to enhance it later. If your definition of living your life in full depends on spending every penny you earn, maybe you should stop and think about all the rewarding, memorable things in life that are free. Those are things you'll still cherish 35 years later, more than all the stuff you spent money on.

And I know keeping that balance is never as simple as it sounds-- I've spent money on traveling, and 35 years from now I think I'll be glad I have those memories and not be wishing I hadn't spent the money. I'd hate to be 80 years old and have regrets about not having spent a few thousand dollars to go somewhere I'd always wanted to go. But I'd have even more regrets if I was 80 years old and homeless because I'd blown all my money when I was young. None of us can avoid making choices that we might regret later, but when it comes to saving money, I think it's pretty clear which way you should hedge your bets.

Net Worth July-October 2011

2011-11-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

Another belated net worth update. (I was trying to post updates on NetworthIQ but the site doesn't seem to be working and their security certificate is expired. What's up over there?)

Anyway, it's been an interesting few months-- some big ups and downs in my investment accounts. Mostly downs, unfortunately! After hitting a high of $591,390 back at the end of April, the stock market has been very cruel to me. I had a nice recovery in October, but I'm still down quite a bit from where I was.

Not much else of interest to report, other than moving a few thousand dollars from cash into mutual funds and some more I-Bonds at Treasury Direct. My credit card balance is in about the range it usually is, so no unusual levels of spending (and as always, I'm paying it in full every month). I've already maxed out my 401k deductions for the year, so any further changes in the retirement accounts will be due to investment gains and losses alone. At some point in the next few months I'll probably pay some extra principal on my mortgage and increase the home equity amount.

Stay tuned for a long overdue update on my spending and budget categories. Onward and upward!

Just Bought Some I-Bonds

2011-10-24T11:29:00.004-04:00

Jim at Bargaineering has a great post explaining why now is a good time to buy some Series I Bonds. It reminded me I hadn't bought any bonds in several years, and hadn't even checked how much interest I'd earned in quite a long time. So I went through the lengthy log-in process at Treasury Direct (it's set up to be extremely secure, with various access codes and security questions required), and was pleased to see I had over $140 more interest than I had the last time I checked, and I also moved $5,000 out of a couple of savings accounts to purchase additional bonds, bringing my purchases up to $8,000 in online-only bonds, and a $1,000 paper bond sitting in my fireproof box at home. The total value of these is currently $10,196.80 with the interest I've earned. I think I may start buying these a bit more aggressively, as I'm sitting on too much cash earning almost zero interest. I now have bonds that are old enough to redeem without penalty, so I could access the money if I needed it. Earning over 3%, and even more for the next few months, is very attractive right now!
If you haven't bought bonds before, check out TreasuryDirect.gov for more info.

Net Worth Jan-June 2011

2011-10-17T09:00:00.002-04:00

I've been very bad about keeping up with my monthly updates, but here's some summary numbers I ran a while back looking at net worth shifts for the first half of this year:

I moved some cash into my investment account in March, which explains cash going down so much that month. (Though cash went down by less than investments went up because I also received my bonus that month.) My credit card balance is fairly consistent most months, except in March-- not sure what happened then, I don't remember being particularly frugal that month! (Just as a reminder, I do pay my credit card in full every month, but I count whatever's outstanding at the end of the month as a liability.) My overall net worth rose nicely over the 6 months, but you can see that May and June were tough, due to the stock market.
I'll be posting another update soon to bring things up to date for the 3rd quarter. It's not going to be pretty, I'm afraid. Back in April I was thinking I could hit $600k by the end of this year, but the market has been crazy and I don't think I'll even be close...

New Productivity Features in iPhone OS5: Email Flags and Reminders

2011-10-13T11:02:00.004-04:00

In the almost 15 years since I've started using electronic devices to manage my life, there's one thing I've wished for: the ability to read and FLAG emails and synchronize that with Outlook.
Flagging emails, and sorting my inbox so they remain at the top, is my number one tip for staying organized at work and making sure things I have to do don't slip through the cracks. But when I first had Palm Pilots, I either couldn't sync my email, or they didn't have a flagging option. I have had Blackberries issued by my employer, but until the most recent one, flags weren't supported-- and I really hate the Blackberry screen, so I've avoided using it since I got an iPhone. But the iPhone email app isn't that great, and didn't show flags at all... until now!
I just upgraded to iOS5 on my iPhone 3GS, and now the flags synchronize perfectly with Outlook! I can read my email on the go and not have to mark it as "unread" if I want to remind myself to follow up when I am back at my desk. Unfortunately, the iPhone email app still lacks a lot of features I'd love, like being able to filter the view to only unread messages, or sort the inbox so flags are at the top.

The other feature I'd been looking forward to in iOS5 was the "Reminders" app. I've used other 3rd party To-Do list apps-- Toodledo is pretty good, but the problem with that was that syncing to Outlook was always a bit dodgy (and the app I used is no longer even supported)-- and that was when I was able to actually install the needed desktop program on my work computer. When I was upgraded to a new computer, the IT department totally locked down our ability to install any non-approved programs, so I completely lost my Outlook syncing.

But now that I've got iOS5 and Reminders, the problem is solved! After upgrading, Reminders was automatically added to the apps syncing with my Exchange account, and the first time I opened the app, my tasks were there and syncing worked perfectly in both directions. Unfortunately, there are a couple of major features missing again! First of all, my tasks are not sorted in any order I can figure out in the iPhone app list view-- they aren't by date created, they aren't alphabetical, they're just totally random. There are no options to determine your preferred sorting method. You can sue the date view to see tasks due on a particular date, but you can't see more than one day at a time, so that seems pretty useless.

The other issue is that I can create multiple task lists on the iPhone, and all the tasks in those lists will sync with Outlook-- but on Outlook all the lists are merged. There is no way to map your Outlook task categories to your Reminders lists. So much for my idea of going back to having multiple task lists on Outlook for Business, Personal, Grocery List, etc. Yes, I can have these lists on my phone, and I can recategorize tasks on the desktop, but it will be annoying to have to maintain this somewhat manually instead of having it automatically sync.
I have yet to come across any other reviews that address these issues, but I can't believe I'd be the only one to want these features, so here's hoping they add them later! I won't hold my breath, though. But I can at least loop this back to the topic of money by pointing out that these kinds of productivity aids help me manage my job and hopefully get ahead in my career and make more money... and the iOS5 upgrade was FREE!

Does anyone else have any good iPhone productivity tips?

Refinancing a Mortgage

2011-10-10T15:55:00.002-04:00

As you've no doubt heard, mortgage rates once again at historic lows. I've thought about refinancing, but I think I may just leave it alone for now, as it just may be too much trouble. The background on why relates to the story below.

A friend of mine, who I'll call Maud, is currently in the process of refinancing a property. In the course of talking to her about this, she told me all this interesting stuff about the history of her home-ownership. This all starts about 30 years ago, when Maud's parents sold their share of a small business and suddenly had some cash to invest. They decided to buy an apartment in NYC, figuring that their kids might rent it from them while they were students, and they could rent it to other tenants as well. After one of those other tenants left, Maud decided she wanted to settle in the apartment long term, but the problem was that she wanted to buy rather than rent, but the apartment was too expensive for her at that time. Meanwhile, her parents had also decided to buy another property elsewhere as a vacation home. They ended up inviting Maud to buy a share in the vacation home at a level she could afford.
Now this sounds weird, but it all ended up being part of some complicated tax shelter scheme, which allowed Maud to swap her part-ownership in the vacation home for shares in the NYC apartment over time. There was a big tax advantage for her parents, and for Maud the advantage was that she borrowed privately from her parents and stretched out the purchase in a way that made it more affordable. Over time, Maud's income increased and she was able to pay off the loan from her parents early, leaving her in full possession of her apartment. This all sounds kind of odd, but Maud insisted that she paid her parents the full appraised value of the apartment plus interest. As a real estate investment, it didn't turn out that well for her parents since the market crashed after they first bought the place, but I guess they at least saved on paying some capital gains taxes. This would be an example of the sort-of-rich getting sort-of-richer based on hiring good lawyers!

Anyway, a few years after Maud paid off the apartment, she was doing very well in her career and had saved a lot of money, since her monthly costs were quite low without the mortgage. She started thinking about real estate investments herself. She looked at properties outside the city and came across an inexpensive, very small, but charming house. It was so charming, in fact, that she decided she wanted it for herself and bought it to use on the weekends. She admitted that it was a rash decision and not exactly the kind of "investment" she'd had in mind! But she loves having the house as a retreat, especially since her city apartment is also fairly small and she can use the extra space, which seems cheap compared to buying a bigger apartment in the city.
When she bought the place, she got a fixed-rate mortgage of about 6.5%. So of course the rates we've been seeing in the last few months were very attractive to her, and she decided to refinance. But here's the reality of what's happened in the last couple of years: banks are actually being a lot more picky about who they'll lend to these days. Because the market value of her house was down since she bought it and because there were some other complicating factors, the bank that held her existing mortgage didn't want to refinance it, and it was unlikely any other bank would either.
(At this point, my question to Maud was why the same bank would ever want to voluntarily lower the rate on a mortgage from 6.5% to 4.5%-- sounds weird, doesn't it? But aside from not wanting to drive you to their competition, and benefiting from the fees that the refinance transaction generates, Maud pointed out that the rate itself is a wash for the bank, as they are always pricing the mortgage as a spread from the prevailing rate set by the Federal Reserve.)
Back to the problem with refinancing: Maud was a bit dismayed, but her very sharp loan officer came up with a great solution: instead of refinancing the weekend house itself, why not take out a new mortgage against the paid-off apartment and use that cash to pay off the house in full? The apartment had gained a lot in value over the years, so she had way more equity there than the value of the house. She'd be nowhere near the usual loan-to-value ratios banks would require for a mortgage. All in all, it was a brilliant solution, so Maud forged ahead with the application.
As the process went along, I began to compare her updates with the process I'd gone through to get my mortgage at the height of the real estate boom. It was amazing to me how exacting they were being about every little detail, verifying addresses she'd lived at 30 years ago, asking for all kinds of documentation on the monthly costs of both her homes and the finances of the co-op. An appraiser came and did a whole report with photos and floor plans of every room attached. And this is all for someone with a high income and a perfect credit score, whose apartment is in an established building with other recent sales. This was definintely not a "liar loan!"
Maud also said that the good faith estimate and other application paperwork she received was very clear in its disclosures of the terms. So if anything good has come out of the economic crisis, it may indeed be that our real estate market will now have more stable underpinnings, with mortgages only given to people who can afford them, for properties that are actually worth it.

But back to my situation: I put 20% down when I bought, and I've paid off some extra principal over the last couple of years, but I'm not confident that my apartment would be appraised high enough if I tried to refinance now. It might also be a concern that the developer still owns some of the units in the building. I'm also wondering about selling the apartment in the next few years-- I think I'll be renting it out soon and moving in with Sweetie, but I don't want to be a landlord forever. So it's a dilemma... I may make some inquiries anyway, so I can assess this based on real info rather than my own gut feelings. I'll of course keep you posted when I do!

Yard Sale Economics

2011-10-03T17:10:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had a yard sale? I've been to many, but never actually ran one myself until just recently, when my sister and I helped my mother sell some stuff.
First of all, you get a lot of interesting people showing up, who I'd group roughly as follows:
--low income people buying household items and clothing
--frugal people looking for bargains
--hoarders who just can't walk away without taking "good stuff"
--dealers who want to re-sell items
--collectors who are looking for very specific items
--curious neighbors who always wondered what was in your house

Most of these people will want to haggle. They know that whoever's having the yardsale just wants to get rid of stuff. My sister and I didn't have time to tag everything with prices before all the early birds started showing up, so we found ourselves often just quoting totally random prices that were quite low. Sometimes I wondered if we should have started higher to give ourselves more room to negotiate, but on the other hand, I didn't want anyone to walk away from something they might otherwise have bought-- and I wanted them to buy lots of items!

I took charge of selling my father's old CDs, DVDs and books. Most of the CDs were swept up by a guy who showed up at about 7:30am, with a car already full of stuff from other yardsales. He asked if I'd take $75 for "all the CDs". We'd started off quoting $1 per CD, and I knew there must be a couple hundred CDs at least, so I said I wanted $100 considering he was getting that many, and he agreed. But then I realized I'd undersold myself when we started packing up box after box of CDs for him-- my dad was passionate about music, and he'd collected more like six hundred CDs, at least, and we hadn't even set them all out on the lawn yet! While the guy was looking at other stuff, I started telling our friends who were still bringing CDs out of the house to stop, which made me feel a little sleazy... In the end, the guy ran out of space in his car so he didn't really get "all" the CDs, but he knew he'd gotten a great deal-- I'm sure he's reselling them online somewhere for at least $5 a pop now! I was hoping some other collector or dealer would snap up the rest, but we still had a lot left over at the end of the day.

The hoarder types were funny -- several of them bought bags of random stuff that we never thought anyone would want. My sister had put out a plastic bin of weird junk that seemed so lacking in value that she just labeled it "free." A guy grabbed the whole bin and took it away, and gave us a dollar for it just to be nice!

There were times when it was hard to let things go. Ever since my dad's death, I've struggled with this-- I became a booklover from hours spent as a kid looking at all his bookshelves, and there were other odds and ends that had some sentimental value even though I knew I had no use for them and no place to put them. My sister and I both felt some anguish at moments when people seemed dismissive of the value of things that meant something to us... but there was also one guy who made me really happy. From appearances, at least, he would not have been someone who I would think would have anything in common with my dad, but he kept finding stuff he wanted. He'd buy a few things, then come back for more. You could tell he didn't really "need" any of these books and DVDs, or the old shortwave radio or the tools, but he obviously shared my father's sensibilities in some way, and he kept saying that we had some great stuff. I almost wanted to give it all to him for free, just knowing he appreciated it.

In the end, we cleared about $600, and made a lot of room in my mother's basement and garage. It's sad to think how much my parents paid for the stuff that was sold, as I'm sure it was more than ten times what we got for it, but it's more sad just to say goodbye to some of those things, and it will be harder still when I have a dealer come and buy most of the rest of my dad's books. I just have to keep remembering that it's not about the money, and not about the stuff-- it's about the memories, which will stay with me much longer.

Income and Poverty Statistics

2011-09-16T10:03:00.005-04:00

I love looking at data about income and wealth and poverty levels. I feel like we're so inundated with misleading information when people start talking about "the middle class" in relation to politics and taxes.

A report was just released of Census Bureau Stats about real income before taxes-- it's good to note that this is different from the Adjusted Gross Income stats often reported when people are referring to IRS data. Since weathy people tend to take more deductions for mortgage interest, charitable giving, 401k contributions, etc., it's important to remember that their real income is much higher than their adjusted gross income-- so when politicians talk about taxes that might affect someone whose income is above $200,000, they mean someone whose real income could actually be much higher.

But here's a few stats I found most interesting:

Overall, median household income adjusted for inflation declined by 2.3 percent in 2010 from the previous year, to $49,445.

That is for all households. Breaking it down a bit more:

Married couple households $58,036
Non-family, aka individual male $35,627
Non-family female $25,456

Median income of full-time, year-round workers:
Men $47,715
Women $36,931

15.1% of people are below the poverty threshold. Kind of an arbitrary line in the sand, as someone making a dollar more than the threshold isn't in great shape either. It's also interesting to note that about 34% of people are below 2X the poverty level. The poverty thresholds by household size are below:

# of people in household	48 states &DC	Alaska	Hawaii
1	$10,890	$13,600	$12,540
2	$14,710	$18,380	$16,930
3	$18,530	$23,160	$21,320
4	$22,350	$27,940	$25,710
5	$26,170	$32,720	$30,100
6	$29,990	$37,500	$34,490
7	$33,810	$42,280	$38,880
8	$37,630	$47,060	$43,270

211,492,000 Americans over the age of 15 earned money in 2010, or 67% of total population.

Interesting that it corresponds very closely to the total number of people age 15-64, presumably the ages of people you'd expect to work. But a lot more people are working past the age of 65-- about 8% of people over 65 had income in 2010.

Total popluation of US: 312,222,000

0-14 years: 20.2% (male 31,639,127/female 30,305,704)
15–64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
65 years and over: 12.8% (male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696) (2010 est.)

What this says to me is that almost half of all working individuals in the US couldn't support a family of 4 at more than poverty level. Two-income families have become a necessity... as has debt. The graphic below, which accompanied an article by Robert Reich, highlights this nicely:

All stats are from this Census Bureau report and Wikipedia citations of Census data.

Overheard at the Gym

2011-09-02T11:47:00.003-04:00

The women's locker room at my gym is the best place to overhear interesting money-related conversations. (Actually, I suppose the men's locker room could also be a good place, but I haven't had the chance to find out!)
This morning, I caught snippets of a chat between two women who seemed to be discussing the boyfriend of one of them, or perhaps of a friend of theirs. They were saying that the boyfriend always seemed to brag about his money and status, even in the most unlikely situations, for example saying his office had had a leak during Hurricane Irene, but having to specify that it was some kind of executive suite office, not just "my office." But though they seemed to be saying the guy was sort of an insecure jerk, I caught the phrase "Marry him! Marry him!" I guess because he had money.
Then one of the women seemed to be bemoaning the fact that she'd never have a rich boyfriend. The other woman tried to console her by saying "but at least you're already living the life! I mean, Florida, the Hamptons, here [NYC]..." The first woman responded, "yeah, well, I do a good job looking like it," or something like that, saying that she worked in book publishing, where no one gets rich, so she was just keeping up appearances while being broke.

The whole thing was sort of funny, but also really depressing. I'm embarrassed on behalf of all women when I hear people like that talking about their plots to hook a rich husband, and off-handedly acknowledging that it's more important to them to look rich than to save any money in the hopes of actually being rich, or at least financially stable someday.

That Crazy Stock Market

2011-08-09T19:23:00.003-04:00

How are you riding all these bumps in the road? I was appalled to see the huge drops in the market last week and yesterday, but I also tried to view them as an opportunity to invest at a lower cost. I pulled the trigger this morning and bought some shares of Ford, Kroger and Bristol Meyers Squibb. In the last few years, I've generally stayed away from individual stocks and kept to various mutual funds, mostly the low-cost Vanguard index funds. But I guess I was feeling a little reckless this week, so I used the E*Trade screening tools to find myself some companies with lower P/E ratios and some earnings growth, and then picked these three. We'll see how it goes-- I bought first thing this morning, and by the end of the day, Ford was up almost 4%, while the others were down more than 1%, but my net for the day was a slight gain-- maybe $20! But I'm not trying to be a day trader-- I'll hang onto these for a while and see how they go.

How (Not) to Get a Job

2011-07-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

I have interviewed many many job candidates over the years, and sometimes I'm just amazed at how clueless people can be about presenting themselves well in resumes, cover letters, interviews and even thank you notes. It's really hard to get a job these days, yet some people make it even harder for themselves!

I interviewed one person whose resume seemed a bit familiar. I'd already scheduled an interview with her by the time I dug out my files from a few years before and realized she'd applied for the same job before. And 3 years later, her resume was exactly the same, word for word. That was strike one-- even if your job is the same 3 years later, you should probably at least try to reformat your resume and freshen it up a little!
When she came in for the interview, I alluded to our having met 3 years earlier and asked her to fill me in on what had changed since then. She said "well, I got married!" She might have been trying to strike a conversational or humorous tone but it didn't seem that way-- it was as if she took my question 100% literally and answered me 100% literally that that was the only thing she could think of that had changed. You'd think she could at least come up with some vague statement about how she'd gained additional experience and learned a few things in 3 more years at the same job.
This person seemed to have no concept of how to sell herself in the interview. I was talking to her about a position that would be a somewhat different version of her current job, with a bit more responsibility and creativity involved as opposed to more administrative work. But her responses to my questions seemed to focus only on rote tasks, somehow, even when I was asking her very leading questions, almost trying to drag the right response out of her!
I asked her something along the lines of "if you didn't have to spend half your time doing X, how would you approach the Y part of your job differently?" The right answer would have been something like "The Y part of my job is really interesting, and I have lots of ideas on how to do it better. If I didn't have to worry about X, I could do Y much more proactively and at a higher level of quality." Yet her response was "Gee, it would be great not to have to spend as much time on X. Then I'd be able to respond to emails and questions the same day instead of a few days later." Lame.
I told this candidate that I would be making a decision within the next week because I needed someone to start quickly. I never got a thank you email or note after the interview, but about 3 weeks later she emailed me saying she wanted to "check in" to see where things stood. By then, the person who got the job had started.

And on the subject of thank you notes: I know some people say it has to be handwritten and mailed. I personally prefer the immediacy of email. But either way, give it some substance. I've gotten notes that just said "thanks for meeting with me. I enjoyed our conversation." This tells me nothing about whether the candidate has engaged with the job and is interested in it-- it's just a lazy way of fulfilling an obligation. But I've also gotten great thank you notes that showed that the candidate really listened during the interview. I like to be very clear with people on what I see as their strong points for a job and where I think they'd have a steep learning curve. The smart candidates pay attention to what they think I see as their liabilities, and try to address my concerns by pointing out things they might not have thought to say in the interview, or re-emphasizing other strengths that might overcome my reservations. It's not just a "thanks for your time," it's a way of saying "after hearing more about the job, I really want it and this is why I think I can do it well."

But the best candidates also don't overstate their abilities. I liked this post on Lifehacker about avoiding grandiose claims in a cover letter, which applies during the interview and in thank you notes too. Highlight your strengths, but don't go crazy saying you're the best. And if you've had 3 or 4 years of experience as an assistant, don't claim that your "vast knowledge of the industry" will be an asset to me-- I don't see how anyone can really have "vast knowledge" of anything in just a few years! And LISTEN during the interview-- don't keep interrupting the interviewer as they try to tell you about the job and draw out your responses to it. I've had people who barely let me get a word in because they were so busy telling me they could do a great job and had all the skills I'd need. One person actually did seem like the perfect fit for the job and was almost over-qualified, but the inability to listen was a deal-breaker for me.

And one more thing: be available. Like it or not, most people now have home computers, smartphones, and access to the internet pretty much everywhere they go. (And if you're going to Outer Mongolia or some other place where you don't have it, leave an out of office message that says so.) I invited a candidate to come in for an interview, and pointed out that I was trying to schedule interviews in a fairly short window of time. I never heard back from him until about 3 weeks later, and his excuse was that she'd been traveling on business and then on vacation. If you want to check out for 3 weeks and not read any email, fine, but you shouldn't expect a job interview to be waiting for you when you come back.

Spending for Love

2011-07-13T16:25:00.003-04:00

Does love make you spend money? I was thinking about this today as I returned from lunch with a bag full of largely unnecessary items. My Sweetie broke a glass measuring cup the other day, so I went to Bed Bath & Beyond to purchase a new one. While I was there, I remembered that Sweetie also wanted something for spraying on olive oil (theoretically, you end up using less than if you brush or pour it on, so it's supposed to be healthier). So I bought one of these, or something like it, for about $10. While I was at the register, I saw they had some little padlocks and since Sweetie just joined a gym and needs one, I bought one. I also managed to grab some of those little single-use packs of KrazyGlue, but that's for fixing my own broken watchband, not for Sweetie.

Sometimes it's just more fun to buy little everyday, non-occasion gifts for someone you love. If it was me who wanted the olive oil sprayer, I'd probably have thought about it a lot more, and perhaps experimented with some sort of cheapo spray bottle instead of buying this gimmicky one-- but since it was for Sweetie, I wasn't being that picky. Buying things for Sweetie activates my generosity, while in other situations, I feel very stingy. My usual rules of frugal, deliberative comparison shopping fly out the window when I'm shopping for sweetie, but when I'm shopping for myself, I tend to be very disciplined and often find it hard to commit to buying something.

Do you ever find your spending habits change when you're buying for a loved one?

The Dilemma of Asking For and Accepting Help

2011-06-06T15:47:00.004-04:00

I keep thinking about a friend I'll call Edna. Edna is a divorced mother of two. Because she's had to juggle child care, her job history over the past 15 or so years has been rather checkered-- nothing bad has happened, but she's had to stitch together various part time jobs that would allow her to be there for her kids. She'll do pretty much anything, from cleaning out someone's basement to cold-call selling on a commission-only basis to bartending, but many of her jobs have been temporary so she's never had a chance to really establish herself in a career. Her husband has paid child support, but she's just barely made ends meet-- one of the kids is now old enough to have her own part time job, and she made more money last year than Edna did. I learned this fact during a dinner when another friend of Edna's urged her to apply for food stamps, which Edna did not want to do.

The friend's argument was that these government assistance programs exist precisely for people like Edna-- she does her best to find sources of income but is trying to look after her kids without being a burden to anyone. Her income in some years is basically at or below poverty level though there are times when she manages to do better. Shouldn't she accept some help?
But Edna hates to ask for help, which leads us to another fascinating aspect of her situation: Edna's parents are quite wealthy.
They have several other children. Some of those children have been given quite a bit of financial assistance-- particulary the male children: there seems to be just enough of a generational gap that girls were seen as needing only to find a husband, while boys needed education... and cars and clothes and apartments and so on. But although they've occasionally paid Edna to do work for them, they are otherwise very stingy with her. They barely even give gifts to Edna's kids, and when they do, there's often a whiff of goodie-bag re-gifting about it. Edna hates to ask them for anything, and rarely does, but at one point she reluctantly reminded them of an offhand promise they'd once made to chip in when it came time to pay for sending Edna's kids to college-- this time they kind of winced and alluded to money being tight for them... but of course this is in the context of them having two luxurious homes where they do lots of entertaining, and other trappings of an upper-class life.

I'm way over-simplifying the situation here to avoid too many identifying details, not to mention writing a mile-long post, but it's an interesting dilemma, isn't it? Should someone who is not wealthy herself but has a wealthy family turn to government for assistance? Is it the family's obligation to help her first? Some will no doubt say "neither" but what is someone in such a situation supposed to do? Leave her kids unattended? Pay money she doesn't have for day care programs? Edna's ex-husband is a mess, so he's not much help. It's hard to imagine anyone being more responsible and less prima-donna-ish than Edna... but she just can't seem to make all this work on her own.
Within a few years, both of her kids will be in college, and whether or not they get financial aid, that will be another drain on her resources, even if it does free up her time for a full-time job. But she's already been looking, and it's tough-- with the resume of a stay-at-home-mom who's fit odd jobs in around child-rearing, she's not going to be the most attractive job candidate in a climate like today's, where employers can probably be more picky. But she did mention that she will be going on a second interview for a job that pays about $40,000 a year, an amount she referred to as "life-changing."

Interestingly enough, she told me about the potential job while we were both at the home of another friend who has become something of an art collector. As I was listening to Edna, I was looking up at a painting above the fireplace that supposedly cost $50,000. It was such a collision of worlds... and it leads me to one more facet of these kinds of situations among friends:

Whenever Sweetie and I have dinner with Edna, we'll often cook something at home in order to avoid the issue of whether Edna can afford to go out. Sometimes we do end up going out, and sometimes we'll just pick up the check ourselves and tell Edna it's our treat-- but again, Edna has a lot of pride and won't always let us do that. The art collector friend hadn't seen Edna in a long time and invited us all to visit for a weekend in the country. I had thought we'd just be barbequeing, but we went out to dinner one night, and when the check came, we all split it evenly. I guess on one level that's totally fair, and just because one person makes 10 (or 20 or 100) times more than another doesn't mean it's their obligation to pay. But I personally think that if you invite someone to spend the weekend with you, they are your guest for the whole weekend, which means the host should cover the dinner bill, while the guest will hold up their end of the bargain by bringing wine or some sort of gift and offering to chip in for dinner but not arguing too much when the hosts insist that they'll get it. That rule doesn't have to be set in stone-- maybe going out to dinner one night is the thank-you gift to the host/hostess, to show your appreciation and relieve them from having to cook so you can all just relax and talk. But in this situation it seemed a little insensitive...

A Household Ledger from 1936

2011-05-06T12:44:00.003-04:00

I loved this little article I stumbled across, about a family who found their grandfather's old ledger:

Our family discovered buried treasure recently: a household ledger kept by my husband's grandfather in the 1930s and '40s.

Randy's mom found it while sifting through papers, a 100-page Standard Blank Book yellowed with age. The first line reads "January 1936." Just below that: "cash on hand, $8.21."

What caught my eye first was the handwriting — loopy, uniform, beautiful cursive. John Henry was an elementary school principal and his wife a teacher in Great Bend long before computer keyboards. Their everyday penmanship was wedding-envelope quality, unmatched.

It draws the eye and piques the interest, so I read on:

Rent, $12.50.

One gallon of milk, 20 cents.

Newspaper, 10 cents.

Lights and water bill, $2.35.

Flowers for Mr. Doran's funeral, 15 cents.

"To the Lord's work," $5.

As with most household budgets, the income lines are fewer and farther between, but similarly telling:

Salary for January, $95.

Sold Mrs. Copeland a chicken, 60 cents.

Two dozen eggs, 30 cents.

Helped Bill unload shingles, $1.50....

Reminds me of the notes of my Dad's that I found after he died...

Miscellaneous Tax Notes on a Lucky Day

2011-04-25T10:37:00.005-04:00

Why is today lucky? I found a $20 bill on the street this morning while on my way to the gym.

A commenter on this recent post asked about my tax refund, noting that she made less money than I did yet did not get a refund. Of course, as another commenter pointed out, whether or not you get a refund depends not only on how much money you make and how much you can deduct, but how much you had withheld. If you don't have enough withheld from your paycheck, you'll owe money when tax time rolls around.

Another commenter took me to task for having too much withheld, noting that I'm giving the government a free loan. Yeah, that's kind of true but I really don't think it's a big deal. First of all, the interest I'm losing is not significant-- if my $2307 Federal refund had been sitting in a savings account all year, I'd be lucky to earn $35 in interest on it. Also, I think there's a psychological benefit to getting that money in a lump sum-- it's easier to just sock it away and not spend it, somehow. (Though some people might feel differently, seeing it as a windfall that can be spent on something fun.)
Also, I'd rather not take the risk of underwithholding-- if you owe a lot of Federal taxes at the end of the year, the IRS can assess a penalty which would work out to more than the interest you'd earn on that money while it sat in the bank.

As for my actual taxes paid, I always like to look back at what I paid in taxes via withholding minus my refund received, to see what my net taxes were for the previous year, as a percentage of my income by various measures:

I paid $16,308 in federal taxes via withholding in 2010. Minus $2,307 refunded, my net Federal taxes paid were $14,001.
My total salary plus bonus was $116,661, so my Federal taxes were 12.00% of that. But that's just my work salary, it doesn't include other things I pay tax on, like interest, dividends and income from blogging.
My adjusted gross income includes all those things, but it doesn't include things paid for out of pre-tax dollars, such as my 401k contributions of $16,500, FSA, medical and dental insurance costs and subway metrocard costs deducted from my pay. My AGI ended up being $101,095, so my Federal taxes were 13.85% of that.
But my Federal taxes aren't calculated as a percentage of my AGI-- all my various tax deductions are subtracted from that to get my taxable income. So after taking out my mortgage interest, charitable deductions and various other unreimbursed expenses that relate to my day job and the freelance income from blogging, my taxable income was only $71,532. My Federal taxes were 19.57% of that.
Interesting to note that Warren Buffett has said that in 2006, his taxes came to 17.7% of his taxable income (I'm not sure if he was counting just Federal taxes or also state taxes). Yes, of course his total taxes paid work out to about 58 times more than what I paid since his taxable income was over $46 million... the sad thing is that there are plenty of people who make less money than me who probably pay an even higher percentage of their gross income than I do.

It's also worth noting that my taxable income is less than 60% of my total gross income, and only about 71% of my adjusted gross income. When the media talks about whether or not taxes should be raised on "people who make over $250,000," that usually refers to a household adjusted gross income of $250,000-- their gross salary is probably more, and their taxable income is probably a lot less.

How about you? Have you ever done the math this way on your taxes? I'd be interested to hear from others about your gross income vs. taxable income and what you pay in taxes...

Kidzania: Work as Play

2011-04-15T10:22:00.002-04:00

This is the most fascinating thing I've read this week, an article about a chain of theme-parks for kids where they can play at... real life! State of Play

Right now, in eight malls spread across three continents, thousands of children are dressed as pilots and flying digital planes from mock cockpits, anchoring news broadcasts in fully functional TV studios, or wearing helmets and extinguishing faux flames with real water cannons. This is KidZania, a multinational chain of family entertainment centers, where kids try out professions that have been downsized, simplified, and made fun. At these soccer field-size franchises in malls from Tokyo to Lisbon, children play at being adults. Children can play surgeon, detective, journalist, courier, radio host, and dozens more jobs. They can buy and sell goods at the KidZania supermarket, take KidZania currency that they earn to an operational bank staffed with adult tellers, and be security guards escorting KidZania currency around the park. They can assemble burgers and pizzas, which they can then eat, or give makeovers to other paying children. At the planned KidZania Santiago, Chile, minors will be able to play at being miners. One-size-fits-all costumes supersize the cute factor. The result of all this is mass-produced adorability.

I'm sure when I was a kid I would have thought this was really cool-- it's like a miniaturized world where you can do "real stuff." But there are pros and cons. It's good that it teaches kids about earning money at a job and using that money to buy things. But it's a little creepy that the corporate sponsorship makes it seem like kids are being indoctrinated into a branded world. Also, as critics have pointed out, it's not very creative. By putting kids in an environment where everything has been realistically reproduced, you leave nothing left for them to imagine. Kids can happily use a cardboard box to play restaurant or bank or doctor's office, without McDonald's or HSBC or Crest having to sponsor it. Also, visiting KidZania is pretty expensive-- in Tokyo, it costs $150 for a family of 4, which seems a little steep given all the advertising you're subjected to. What do you think? Would you take your kids to KidZania?

Springtime Shopping Spree

2011-03-31T12:28:00.003-04:00

Ah, spring. The air gets warmer, the sun shines, the birds chirp... and the cash rolls in.

March is always a big month for me, as it's when my company pays out bonuses, and I usually do my taxes earlier enough to be getting my refunds.

Bonus: after taxes and 401k contribution were taken out, my net was about $7,168.

Tax refunds: I got $1,266 from New York State, and $2,307 Federal

So that was over $10,000 that went straight into my savings account. My savings account balance has been rather high lately anyway-- I've been transferring $4,000 a month to my checking account to cover all the bills I'm auto-paying, but my after-tax income is a little over $5,000 a month, so my savings keep building up. I do like to keep a good cushion of cash on hand as an emergency fund, but I also want to make sure I'm investing as much as possible rather than letting too much money sit there earning an infinitesimal amount of interest. So I transferred $25,000 from my savings account to E*Trade and went shopping for mutual funds!

Here's what I bought:

444 of SFSNX @ $11.25 $5,000.00

495 of SFLNX @ $10.10 $5,000.00

993 of BRLIX @ $7.55 $7,500.00

These 3 were new funds that I hadn't invested in before. I don't have a particularly sophisticated method for picking funds: I just use the screening tools they provide on E*Trade to narrow down a list of funds with high Morningstar ratings and low expense ratios.

I also added to my holdings of these two funds that have done pretty well for me over the years:

224 of ICENX @ $22.35 $5,000.00

163 of BRSIX @ $15.38 $2,500.00

We'll see if this ends up being a good choice-- ICENX was way up several years ago and then lost some ground. I'm not sure it now is the best time to be putting more money into an energy fund, but I decided to take a chance on it. And BRSIX did extremely well for me several years ago, and I sold some shares near its peak when I bought my apartment. It took a big hit in the recession, but has rebounded in the last year or so. Hopefully it will continue to do so!

I've always tried to vary my picks among large-cap, small-cap, bond funds, international funds, etc. so I wouldn't have all my eggs in one basket, and though I haven't been very scientific about it, I've ended up coming pretty close to the recommended asset allocation for someone my age, maybe a little more conservative than they suggest. And my performance over the last few years hasn't been too bad, sometimes a little ahead of the overall S&P 500 and never lagging too far behind, as you'd expect given I have a lot of index funds.

After all this, I now have an E*Trade portfolio with a market value of over $78,000 -- this is what I consider my "personal" investing portfolio, not including a separate Roth IRA portfolio or my 401k. When I first started using E*Trade over 10 years ago, I put a couple thousand dollars in and almost thought of it as "play money"-- it was real savings, but I felt like I was experimenting with investing in the stock market. I've tried various things over the years, like buying a few individual stocks and an ETF or two, but I've learned that I don't want to manage my account too actively or take any weird risks-- I just want to keep putting money in, reinvest the dividends and periodically check to make sure none of my funds are total dogs. There's no exciting get-rich-quick story here, but hopefully, the slow and steady approach will get me to my goals.

Bra-llelujah!

2011-03-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

Ok, male readers-- just stop right here. This one's not for you. Ladies, read on.

How much would you spend for a bra? And what would make it worthwhile for you to spend a lot?

I personally have not spent a ton of money on bras in my lifetime, compared to the average woman, I suppose. I have always found wearing one extremely torturous-- and I mean EXTREMELY. I have some back pain issues that make it really uncomfortable to have anything digging in back there. I also hate the feeling of something tight around my chest. I also don't like anything itchy and scratchy, or with little sharp spots. And I have the kind of shoulders that straps always slip off of. In short, I'm just very sensitive to all the things about bras that a lot of other people seem to take for granted as something you just have to deal with.
Fortunately, I've often been able to avoid wearing a bra altogether. I've always been on the small side, so a camisole was a fairly viable substitute. But there are times when a camisole just doesn't cut it. And for those times, I have searched high and low for bras that would work.
Here was my list of necessary features:

Straps that wouldn't slip down, so preferably a racerback style
Straps that wouldn't dig in
No lace or anything remotely itchy
Lightly lined/padded cups for "modesty"
Preferably a front closure
No sportsbra mono-boob
No underwire jabbing into me

I found some bras at the Gap that were close-- a racerback style, front closure, light padding. The had underwires but I was able to cut them out with a pair of sharp scissors. They were almost bearable to wear but the straps had a little metal loop and stitching where they joined the cup-- totally unnecessary and totally itchy. I bought two anyway, but then over the years I had them mostly sitting in my drawer, I seemed to gain some weight and was suddenly a B cup rather than an A.
I bought another style at the Gap that was pretty good for comfort, but the straps were always falling off my shoulders. It was actually meant to be a convertible bra that you could wear with the straps crossed over, but since the closure was in the back, it was almost impossible to get into without either all sorts of contortions or a friend to help you out.
I bought many other bras along the way and had bra-fitting ladies make sure I was buying the right size. I did research online. I tried sportsbras, despite the dreaded mushing effect. Nothing worked.
And then... Bra-llelujah!
That's what it's called-- the SPANX Bra-llelujah! Full Coverage Front-Close Underwire Bra. Oh my god, it was different! The straps are wide and soft and stretchy. The chest strap is wide and soft and stretchy. The cups are padded and comfy and even though it has underwires, they don't dig in. There's one little place on the chest strap where there's a bit of decorative stitching that I wish they'd left out, but it's not too itchy. It closes in the front. It's my dream bra! I went shopping with a friend who wears bras that would drive me up the wall and claims she can forget they're on, and even she went bug-eyed when she tried on the Spanx bra, saying how comfortable it was. But here's the only thing that bummed us both out a bit-- it costs $62.
Most of the bras I've bought were probably in the $20-30 range. I think once I may have spent closer to $50. I'm don't think I've ever spent $62. But I did not hesitate for even a second before I bought it.

I can't help thinking that the woman who founded Spanx is brilliant. The bras aren't their main claim to fame-- it's the "shapewear"-- but she's obviously realized that comfortable undergarments are something that is very valuable to a lot of women. This isn't to say that price isn't an issue at all-- but she also started an lower-priced offshoot line called "Assets" that is sold at places like Target and Loft. Those bras didn't look quite as comfortable to me, but if I have a chance to check them out in a store, I will.

There's one other thing you may be thinking: "that Spanx bra may be comfortable, but it isn't the sexiest-looking thing..." All I can say to that is... no, it isn't. I guess if your intention is to have someone want to rip your bra off, it doesn't matter how comfortable it is while it's on. But on the flip side, I'll probably look sexier while wearing the Spanx bra because I won't constantly be squirming and breaking out in hives and grimacing in pain.

I only just recently bought the Spanx bra, so I'm still waiting to see how it will hold up under repeated washings-- if it doesn't, I may start to regret the $62 more. And it does have some competition from another bra I bought the same day, which is now my #2 runner-up comfy bra: Warner's Womens Invisible Bliss Front Close Bra. It's only $32 and a little cuter, though still not quite Agent Provocateur material. And with bras costing around $200, that's where you should go if you want Spanx to seem cheap.

I May Not Be With the Program...

2011-02-17T09:00:00.001-05:00

... but I'm IN the program.

I went to a performance last week, which was organized by an old friend of mine. He occasionally has fundraisers to support his work, and I've always tried to donate money. This year, I contributed $50. So when I saw the show and flipped through the program, there was my name, listed in the lowest rung of contributors. I wasn't expecting to see that at all, and it suddenly made me feel quite weird. I think it may have been the first time I ever saw myself listed in a program as a donor.

Those lists in the backs of programs are always funny. When I was a kid going to the ballet or symphony with my parents, I'd always read the lists of names, mainly because I was the kind of voracious reader who couldn't not read in an idle moment and would read the cereal box at breakfast if necessary. But it also kind of interested me, as I got older, to know that there were these rich people who supported the arts. As an adult, I became more aware of who those names might be-- well-known business executives, perhaps, or members of wealthy families. I'd look at the lists wondering if executives in my own industry might be contributors, or looking for the names of my old college classmates who might be rich and/or successful today.

The lists always have various tiers-- "friend," "benefactor," "donor," "angel," and such. If I saw names I recognized, I couldn't help noticing which level they were in and how much money they gave. I suppose for many people, donating to arts organizations is done with this sort of thing in mind-- showing everyone how benevolent you are, showing everyone your taste and passion for the arts, and showing everyone how much money you've got. Of course there are always a few "anonymous" donors listed, but most people are named.

When I donated to my friend's organization, it didn't cross my mind that there would be a listing in a program. And it was a very short listing. I couldn't help thinking, geez, I sent 50 bucks and yet I'm one of only a dozen or so donors total, at all the levels! I guess I also saw it as crossing some kind of line in my life-- in my younger days, my name was in programs because I helped paint the sets, or design the poster, or handle props and push furniture around. I was a part of the show as a creative person, not just that person once removed who throws some money at it. Some of the other donors were people I knew were also creatively involved with my friend's work, so it's not like there's always a hard line between those who "do" and those who pay. But it was funny to think that in some way, I'm working at my not-that-interesting office job so my friend, whose creative work seems to pay his bills, doesn't have to.
Such is life, I guess. And I have to say, I was thrilled for my friend and thought his performance was amazing. I haven't been able to get it out of my head for days, and experiencing that kind of art is certainly worth $50 or more. In fact, he just sent out another fundraising email and I contributed another $50. If he does another show, I'll buy tickets and if he sends out another email, I'll donate again. Maybe I'll even make it to the next tier in the program!

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T13:26:00.005-05:00

I can't believe it's February 14th already! I just ran out at lunch to buy a card for Sweetie, and was happy to find a good one for under $3 after thinking I might have to spend $7!
Sweetie and I both liked this article from the NY Times this past weekend: When Love Outgrows Gifts on Valentine's Day, and were agreeing with the philosophy of only giving gifts when you feel inspired to do so, rather than out of obligation on certain holidays. Yet after talking about it, I blurted out "we're not exchanging gifts for Valentine's Day, are we?" There's always that little doubt, that one person will do something when the other least expects it! But a card always seems nice. I just wish I'd gotten my act together in time to make one instead of buying one. Oh well, there's always next year!

Just Say No...to Millions of Dollars??

2011-01-27T13:11:00.004-05:00

This is quite a story, about a major league pitcher who walked away from millions of dollars because he didn't feel he deserved it.

Pitcher Spurns $12 Million, To Keep Self-Respect

The guaranteed contract is a fundamental principle of Major League Baseball, as
much a part of the game as balls, strikes and outs. No matter how a player
performs, or how his body holds up, he must be paid in full. Only in rare cases
— an injury sustained off the field, gross personal misconduct — does a player
forfeit his paycheck.

But the case of Gil Meche is rare for an entirely
different reason. Meche, a 32-year-old right-handed pitcher, had a contract that
called for a $12 million salary in 2011. Yet he will not report to Surprise,
Ariz., with the rest of the Kansas City Royals for spring training next month.
He will not have surgery to repair his chronically aching right shoulder. He
will not pitch in relief, which involves a lighter workload.

Meche
retired last week, which means he will not be paid at all.

“When I
signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche said this week by phone
from Lafayette, La. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt
bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I
didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”

I hope he makes a second career of giving speeches to corporate CEOs-- some of them could certainly stand to learn from his example!

2010 Year End Recap

2011-01-10T21:38:00.004-05:00

Well the year came to a close in an interesting and good way.

First of all, let's look at my net worth as of 12/31/10:
Cash and Bank Accounts: $66,039
Retirement (401k and Roth IRA): $320, 626
Other Investments (mutual funds @ E*Trade): $51,294
Bonds $5,197
Home Equity $82,592
Credit Card Balance -$2,615
TOTAL: $523,133

Now you may be thinking, as I did, whoa! Her net worth as of a month before was only $479,273! Did her net worth really increase 9.15% in one month? Well, I did receive $9,000 more of my inheritance from Great Aunt Minnie, and the stock market did ok... but what I also discovered is that I had the wrong symbol in Quicken for one of my mutual funds and therefore the wrong price, so my net worth has been understated by several thousand dollars for I don't know how long. So I not only blew away my original year end goal of $450,000, I sailed past the half-million dollar mark, which was totally unexpected. Pretty cool.

As for my income and expenses, here's a look at the totals for 2010 vs. 2009:

	2009	2010	Var.	% Var.
Income
Bonus	$11,765	$17,288	$5,523	47%
Gift Received	$1,309	$24,200	$22,891	1749%
Interest Inc	$776	$502	-$274	-35%
Other Inc	$6,503	$6,386	-$117	-2%
Salary	$96,206	$99,373	$3,167	3%
Tax Refund	$4,211	$2,873	-$1,338	-32%

Total Income	$120,770	$150,623	$29,853	25%

Expenses
Bank Charge	$160	$97	-$64	-40%
Business expense	$0	-$7	-$7	N/A
Charity	$468	$1,055	$586	125%
Clothing	$1,639	$2,648	$1,009	62%
Dining	$7,895	$8,552	$656	8%
Education	$406	$455	$49	12%
Entertainment	$663	$448	-$214	-32%
Gifts Given	$962	$1,924	$963	100%
Gym & Fitness	$1,317	$1,361	$44	3%
Household	$1,337	$760	-$577	-43%
Home Insurance	$335	$335	$0	0%
Housing	$14,384	$14,171	-$213	-1%
Medical	$1,938	$4,556	$2,619	135%
Misc	$2,215	$3,412	$1,197	54%
Taxes	$30,325	$34,053	$3,728	12%
Subscriptions	$956	$743	-$213	-22%
Travel	$1,712	$4,803	$3,091	180%
Utilities	$1,936	$2,454	$518	27%


Total Expenses	$68,648	$81,819	$13,171	19%


Net Savings	$52,122	$68,804	$16,683	32%

% of Gross Income Saved	43.16%	45.68%

A few notes:

As noted elsewhere, I received a $24,000 inheritance from a family member.
Other Income is matching 401k contributions from my employer.
Interest is down because I shifted quite a bit of money from bank accounts into investment accounts.
Charity and Gifts Given are up for reasons explained in this post.
Medical is way up because I had a crown and root canal and exceeded the annual cap on my dental insurance.
Miscellaneous is up mainly because I bought an iPhone and some apps.
Travel is up because I didn't do much of a vacation last year, but this year I went to Turkey and splurged a little on hotels even though my air ticket was purchased with frequent flyer miles.
Utilities is up because of the higher monthly costs of the iPhone.
Subscriptions is down because I canceled my NY Times delivery at home, since I spend so much time at Sweetie's place. Household is lower for the same reason
I'm pretty consistent but I let a few categories creep up a bit without any real reason, particularly Dining. I still like eating out and drink too much-- everyone has to have a vice, right?
Clothing was also higher but I really needed some new work clothes and shoes, so I'm not too concerned about that.

But the bottom line is that I continue to save a lot of my income. If not for the inheritance, I would have saved less than I did last year, but at least some of that was due to more giving, and higher taxes because I earned more. It's not like I went crazy buying tons of stuff, even if I did allow myself a few treats like an iPhone, some clothes and a vacation.

Now I have to look ahead at 2011... what should my next net worth goal be? Should I make any changes to my budget? This could be the year when I rent out my apartment and move in with Sweetie, which could change things a lot. And I need to take a close look at my investment allocations, which I haven't done in a while. So much to think about! And write about here... I'm going to try to post more frequently this year. So happy 2011! As always, onward and upward!

Your Charity Choices

2010-12-22T15:25:00.006-05:00

Thanks again to everyone who suggested charities for me to donate to. I donated $50 each to these 10 charities randomly selected from the comments:

The Trevor Project

Planned Parenthood:

New York Public Library:

Joshua's Wish:

Donors Choose:

Doctors Without Borders:

Charity:Water:

Catholic Charities USA:

Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition:

Americares:

Thanks again to all the loyal readers of this blog! Happy Holidays!

November 2010 Recap

2010-12-19T11:53:00.002-05:00

It's a bit late for this, but I'll get it out of the way before I have to move on to December!

First of all, it was a big month for income: $23,536 in total. In addition to my salary, I received $15,000 as part (not all) of my inheritance from Great Aunt Minnie. (I had thought that would be the full amount, but I got another $9,000 in December. I continue to be bewildered, amazed and grateful whenever I see these numbers.)

Gift Received	$15,000
Interest Inc	$36
Salary	$8,500

As for expenses, nothing too dramatic to report. I returned a few pairs of boots I'd bought from Zappo's last month, so the clothing line is negative. Travel is high because Sweetie and I settled up what we'd spent on our vacation back in September and I owed about $800. And I started doing a wee bit of Christmas shopping.

Taxes	$2,830
Housing	$1,716
Travel	$1,066
Dining	$769
Utilities	$176
Medical	$113
Misc	$100
Gifts Given	$80
Subscriptions	$58
Household	$43
Entertainment	$26
Business expense	$9
Clothing	-$759

The net is that I saved $17,309 in November, which is pretty good even without the $15,000 inheritance.

As for my net worth, it increased $20,493 from last month (+4.47%) to $479,273.

	10/31/10	11/30/10	Var.	Var. %
Cash	$45,665	$59,662	$13,997.00	30.65%
Stocks	$49,780	$49,704	-$76.00	-0.15%
Bonds	$5,091	$5,197	$106.00	2.08%
Retirement	$282,052	$284,341	$2,289.00	0.81%
Home	$81,856	$82,223	$367.00	0.45%
Credit Card	-$5,664	-$1,854	$3,810.00	-67.27%
	$458,780	$479,273	$20,493

So far, the inheritance has just gone into cash savings, but I'll probably add some more to mutual investments soon. The only other change of note here is that I finally updated my savings bond values, which I don't do every month.

December will probably not be a big savings month, considering charitable donations and holiday gift-giving, but I think 2010 overall will look pretty good, and I should exceed my year end net worth goal even backing out the inheritance. But what's next for 2011? We'll see...
Onward and upward!