Tired but happy

Time over money

2008-07-09T20:22:00.002-04:00

Once again, M and I are making one of our unorthodox decisions about our careers and our income and our family life.

Effective immediately, M is reducing his hours from 40 per week to 32. This means a pay cut, of course, but it will also mean he can spend more time with our son L, and it will free me up to work more. Or rather, to work the same amount I'm working now, but to do less work on the weekends and in the evenings.

Ever since I started my new freelance gig, I've been working every weekend, and most nights until way too late. And while L is at camp every morning, I race home and put in a couple hours' worth of work. And then I pick him up at camp and give him lunch, and then he watches a video while I do more work, while the summer is passing us by outside.

This is a bit scary, because freelance work is notoriously inconsistent, and this is a new gig and I'm still working out the kinks and so is my client. So we're reducing our steady income and relying more on irregular income. Also, I had high hopes of saving most of my freelance income for things like a different house, etc. With this new arrangement, we're pretty much guaranteed to be in this house for a long long time. There will be no moving up or moving out.

But I feel good about it. Money, schmoney, right?

And hopefully I'll be able to get a little more sleep.

Gratitude, pride, and a little bit of guilt

2008-07-01T13:03:00.005-04:00

My net worth is so high these days that even this month's large drop due to stock market drama doesn't really bother me. It may not seem all that high to some of you, but to me it seems like a huge amount.

I don't mean to sound cocky. On the contrary, I feel very humble about this.

M and I had a conversation the other day about whether we are in good shape financially because we're good with money or because we've had huge financial advantages from our families. He says he thinks it's about half and half. I would be happy if we could take even half the credit for it.

* We both got very good educations, paid for through college by our parents (or, in M's case, his parents' tuition remission because they were university employees). I did get some scholarships in college, and we both worked, but the vast majority was paid for by the parents.

* We both got very good graduate degrees, paid for by full tuition scholarships. In fact, we both chose that school because we were offered the scholarship, so we often joke about how we wouldn't have met if it weren't for the Big Rich Alumni Muckity-Muck Scholarship Fund at the public university where we got our graduate degrees. But I guess we can feel proud of ourselves that we won the scholarships, and that we went to that school because of them. We both would have chosen other schools if money were no object.

* We were given money by both sets of parents to help us buy our house.

* But even with that big financial leg up, we were careful to buy a house we could afford without further help and even without expected future raises. This was in spite of major pressure from my parents, who wanted us to buy about five times the house we ended up with. We could have bought this house without parental assistance. The parental assistance just meant that we were able to fix it up much, much more quickly than we would have been able to do otherwise.

* Neither one of us has ever carried a balance on a credit card or bought a car with credit. We have each had times in our lives when we made very little money, under $10,000 a year. But we managed not to get into credit card debt. Again, this was a combination of luck and good sense. The most serious example that comes to mind for me is when I needed a root canal that cost about 2 months' salary. Most people would have been forced to put it on a credit card. Not I. It was one of the rare times when I called Daddy for help.

So I guess he's right. In almost every financial scenario, we have had advantages that most people don't have, and we've also been able to use those advantages well.

Most of the time I just feel grateful. I guess I can feel just a little bit proud of myself, though. And as I get older I'm getting better at not feeling guilty about the advantages I've had, and instead doing what I can to make sure other people also get those advantages.

Paper stimulus payment

2008-07-01T12:59:00.003-04:00

We just got a notice that my partner's stimulus payment of $600 will arrive this week. I got mine a long time ago, because I had a refund coming so I put down a bank account number for direct deposit. Because M owed money and had to send a check, he forgot to put down a bank account number.

The stimulus payment will be sucked up into one expense or another if we let it. I think we'll put it into the savings account, to be taken out only a few weeks later when we hire a second contractor to clean up the last one's botched job, and also hire someone to repair our roof. We got a third quote on the roof, and it's nicely in between the other two. It like this middle company the best anyway. Their quote was very clear, and they provide a good written 10-year-guarantee. Now, how to convince our neighbor in the attached row house to do her roof, too.

Summer utilities

2008-06-27T09:20:00.002-04:00

We're in that funny, early-season period when the budget billing on our electric and gas have not yet reset. That means I'm running fans in every room, but I'm still paying low electric bills based on my winter and spring usage. Meanwhile, the heat is obviously off, and I don't use the oven or even the stove as much, but we're paying high gas bills based on the amount of gas we were using when the weather is colder. The same thing will happen in the fall. I'll be paying astronomical electricity bills, a la summer, and low gas bills even as I'm cranking up the thermostat.

I'm happy to say that I'm feeling less pinched, though. I don't know if I'm just used to the higher food prices now, but I don't have that same gasping for breath feeling when I'm paying bills. Also, one of my employers was five weeks late in paying me, and now I'm all paid up, so that helps.

In a couple weeks, I should start getting paid for my new ongoing freelance writing gig, so that will also help, although I'm still hoping to funnel most of that money into savings.

General update

2008-06-18T11:39:00.002-04:00

House:
We had to fire our contractor mid-project. That sucked. So the new facade on our house is not finished. I'm in the process of getting quotes from two other contractors. This time, I'm making sure I get someone experienced. And insured. And who is not a friend. Yes, it's true. We hired a friend. Who didn't know what he was doing. And wasn't licensed. Or insured. Now you know I have not business giving advice to anyone because I make all the classic mistakes myself.

And there's another house for sale in my neighborhood that I've fallen in love with. I know it's not the right time for us to buy, but it's so so tempting, especially when the renovations on this house are such a huge pain in my butt. I just want to sell this problem and buy a different one.

Work:
My weekly freelance gig started, altho they're still publishing the articles I wrote and got paid for earlier in the year. But it's finally up and running and I'm very excited.

Family:
School is out. I have a preschool tuition payment for September due in July, but other than that, it's nice to have a break from those big monthly bills. The kid is in camp, which is wicked cheap, but is not nearly enough childcare. Gotta go pick him up in a minute here. My two-hour workday is just about over.

That's about it!

Hope everybody in the Northeast is enjoying the cooler weather, and that everyone in the Midwest is starting to dry out.

Single-stream recycling

2008-06-18T11:36:00.002-04:00

For years, I've taken my plastic bottles and cardboard to a monthly recycling drop-off.

Finally, finally, almost the entire city has single-stream recycling, and all this stuff can be recycled on the curb.

Hooray!

Now, how to get more people to compost?

Book review: Cash-rich retirement

2008-06-18T10:59:00.003-04:00

I've had my review copy of Cash-rich retirement by Jim Schlagheck sitting on my bedside table for months. Here are the key take-away points that I've found the most helpful.

Schlagheck's book starts with the usual scare tactics. They're scary because they're true. Most people aren't prepared for retirement! You may be one of them! Good thing you bought this book! I can save your golden years before it's too late!

But Schlagheck's book does make some interesting points that I haven't seen emphasized to the same degree elsewhere. He talks about the history of retirement, which is a relatively new concept, and is perhaps becoming passe as people re-think the possibility of ceasing to work for pay altogether during the final third of their life.

Schlagheck says that we should be looking more closely at demographic trends and letting them inform our investing. He's not the only one who is worried about the boomer retirement wave that we're just starting to see. He thinks that boomers will have a huge impact on the economy. Especially scary: Boomers own a lot of houses, and as they sell or downsize or die, there is going to be a huge amount of housing inventory on the market, which will drive prices down. Great. Just what us working folks need. Further depreciation in our largest single asset.

Another major point: He doesn't hold with the standard wisdom that you should gradually shift out of securities and into bonds as you get closer to retirement. He writes about the fact that bonds are not risk-free, and one of the biggest risks you run in bond investing is inflation. He thinks that your retirement money ALWAYS needs to be diversified and conservative and have inflation protection built in. You can't afford to lose that money at any point in your career, and you certainly can't afford to let it get whittled away by inflation during the 30 odd years you may be living in retirement.

This is definitely a new idea for me. I have never seen myself becoming a blue-haired old lady with 60, 70, or 80% of my money in bonds and only a token representation in the stock market. No, I've always imagined myself as a blue-haired old lady who is still actively managing her portfolio and keeping a diversified mix of stocks. All while I'm going on adventure travel expeditions or writing books about sex for octogenarians, of course.

But this idea may impact my investing in the near term as well. I actively manage my Roth IRA, which accounts for a little less than half of my retirement savings. But my workplace plans (all 3 of them) are invested in target-date funds. Schlagheck hates target-date funds. This is bad news for a lazy investor such as myself, and this book has made me want to rethink my strategy a bit.

He is also a big, big dividend guy. He thinks investments should produce income. Period. If your main profit lies only in appreciation, whether it's real estate or stocks, he thinks you're risking being hammered by market downturns. If you're receiving income all along from your investments (which you of course reinvest), market downturns don't take all the profitability out of owning assets.

Schlagheck published this book in 2008, which means he was probably writing it in 2006 and editing it in 2007. It's obvious to him that the real estate bubble is bursting, although it's not clear yet how bad it's going to be. And the economic woes of 2008 are not upon him yet. The book is an interesting time capsule of what we were all thinking two years ago. It's amazing how fast this stuff changes. But many of his ideas will be relevant for a long, long time. His ideas are certainly thought-provoking. Maybe we should all be looking at our portfolios and asking ourselves how demographics will effect us. Maybe we should all give dividend stocks another look. Maybe we should kick those target-date funds to the curb.

And maybe not. But the book is an interesting read, even if the guy uses way too many exclamation points!

New retirement blog from US News

2008-06-18T10:56:00.003-04:00

US News reporter Emily Brandon is now writing a blog called Planning to retire, and she's added TBH to her blogroll. Thanks, Emily!

She's just getting the blog off the ground, but I like the profiles of individuals. My enjoyment of this kind of financial voyeurism is how I got into the PF blog world to begin with. Currently she's writing a series on people who have had retirement, or semi-retirement thrust upon them because of their health, family obligations, job loss in their later years, etc. Good stuff.

What is this unfamiliar sensation?

2008-06-03T11:42:00.003-04:00

Can it be? Yes, I think it's true. I'm all caught up.

The article I've been working on slowly for six weeks is done (altho it will probably come back for revisions next week).

The financial books I keep for my son's school are all ship shape and ready to be handed off to next year's treasurer.

My other volunteer job is sailing along without needing too much interference from me.

M's 45th birthday has come and gone and he was very happy with his presents and the small gathering we had.

The house is clean. Or cleanish, anyway. Good enough for me.

The jungle behind the house has been weed-whacked.

The travel plans and childcare plans for the summer are all set.

I'm pretty much on top of my life.

Except that of course I'm never really caught up. I'm just caught up on all the urgent tasks that have been making me feel overwhelmed. Which means that instead of reading more and going hiking and generally enjoying life as I have been doing, I should start taking care of the other, less urgent stuff:

L's asthma and eczema are worse, and I should take him to the doctor to see if we should be doing something more aggressive with his allergies, which are causing both things. I don't want to give him more medications, though, so I'm dragging my feet on the doctor visit. Still, I should be hoovering the house more often with our Hepa-filter vacuum, and especially I should be cleaning his room more often and more thoroughly to keep the dust down.

I still haven't gotten around to buying a used car, which we decided to do back in December.

And the construction project on my house rages on. M and I still have to make some decisions and this is a huge source of tension for us. We fight horribly every time we have to make a decision about renovating or decorating our house.

Oh, and I still haven't changed my closet over from winter to summer clothes, but that's no problem, because I never got around to changing over from summer to winter clothes last fall. The result: Every available surface in our bedroom has stacks of clean, folded clothes. M's dresser and closet are as usual perfectly organized and season-appropriate. Luckily, he loves me, so he only complains about my stacks of clothes every few weeks or so.

But, the heck with it! We're going on a short vacation this week, Thurs-Sun. It will be soon enough to tackle all these things when I get back, and by then, work will be feeling more urgent again so I'll have a good excuse to put off the really dreadful tasks, like shopping for and buying a new car.

Update

2008-05-27T10:05:00.004-04:00

A few small pieces of news about the TBH coffers.

House

Our house doesn't have termites after all. It does, however, have serious water damage under the siding in the front, and a scary problem with the roof. The roof problem is made even more scary by the fact that we need to convince our next door neighbor to do her roof as well if we want our house to be immune to future water damage. Our relationship with our neighbor is cordial but not friendly, and she's retired. I think she has a city pension, and I know she owns a house in another part of the city and rents it out. But she doesn't seem to be rolling in money any more than the rest of us, and she absolutely refused to consider that her roof needs replacing when I talked to her about it the other day. She does have an adult daughter who lives with her and works full time, something in health care, I think. But the daughter seems to spend all her money on having a new car every couple years, and on fabulous outfits to wear to church (she's one of those Christians that seems to always be out-Christianing other people). So I'm a bit freaked out and trying to stay calm til we get a second opinion on the roof. In the meantime, we will soon have a gorgeous new facade on our house, which is costing buckets but will make me much happier since I've always hated the aluminum siding.

Work

I wrote months ago about the possibility that I'd be writing a weekly column for, um, a periodical that you've probably all heard of. There have been delays upon delays, and for a long time I was happy that it wasn't starting yet because I have too much on my plate as it is. But it looks like it's starting soon, some time in the next few weeks. The pay is mostly settled at $600 per week for a column of about 600 words, give or take. This means I need to knuckle down and finish another freelance article assignment I've been working on very slooowly. I have another small freelance gig scheduled for the middle of June, so things might be a bit crazy around here if the column starts before the other two are finished. When I first heard about the column it seemed like a huge amount of extra income. Now, with the house repairs taking a huge bite out of our emergency fund, and the increase in other expenses mean that I'm now looking at the freelance income not as extra money but as necessary if we want to fix our house, rebuild our emergency fund, pay all our bills, and still save the same percentage of our income.

Taxes

I sent in my application to get a business license from the City of Philadelphia. I am not happy about this, but I decided that rather than pretend my freelance business just started yesterday, I'd fess up and pay the back taxes and the penalties. Luckily my freelance income was always under $1000 a year until 2007, when it was bout $5000. The city taxes on freelance income are around 6.5%, so my tax bill will be hundreds of dollars, and the penalties for paying late are steep. But I don't want to wait and see if they catch me before I pay those back taxes. If I did that, not only would I be a shit, but the penalties would keep getting higher and higher the longer I waited to pay up.

Family

Everything else is going well. My kid's school lets out for the summer in a couple weeks, and I'm looking forward to having a break from the preschool parents' political dramas. We have a few trips planned, the first time I've travelled any significant distance since I got sick last year. And I've managed to cut down on some of my volunteer work. If I can only keep saying 'no' to new commitments....

Dangerous ideas

2008-05-19T09:55:00.003-04:00

Great news!

I've figured out how we can afford my dream house right away, without significantly altering our quality of life OR increasing our income. All it will take is just one tiny adjustment, a change of attitude, really.

Currently, our house payments are $600/month. We have around $100,000 equity in our house. We are very close to having $100,000 in retirement savings, too.

So, that's a $200,000 down payment, right?

And if we stop throwing $800/month into our retirement accounts, we'll have that much more money to spend on housing. Sure, sure, we'll lose the tax break of contributing to our retirement plans, but we'll have a bigger mortgage with higher interest so that will be a big tax savings right there, right? And we don't need that silly $200 per month we're putting in our emergency fund either. I mean, come on. What could happen?

So, $200,000 down payment.
Say we now have $1500 per month to spend on payments.

We're not far from being able to afford that $400,000 house!

And all I have to do is convince myself that we'll be able to live on Social Security in our old age.

See? Just a minor attitude adjustment, and voila. My dream house is within my grasp.

Simple greed

2008-05-12T14:18:00.003-04:00

I had pretty much decided to kill my blog, for various reasons, but before I got around to it I suddenly got an increasing number of advertisers wanting link placement on TBH, both directly and through Linkworth, which is the only third-party ad network I use anymore. Some of the new direct advertisers are from Australia or the UK. Maybe the weak dollar makes sites like mine cheaper for them? Who knows?

I'm not strong enough to resist the mostly passive income, so the blog lives on, with infrequent posts and a stale template. I still think it needs a major overhaul if I'm going to keep it long term, but for now it will continue to limp along as it is.

Thanks to all the readers who keep coming back.

City taxes on self-employed income

2008-05-11T18:48:00.004-04:00

Every person desiring to engage in or to continue to engage in any business within the City of Philadelphia shall, whether or not such person maintains a place of business in the City, prior to engaging in such business, procure a business privilege license from the Department of Licenses and Inspections.

Crap.

Crap crap crap.

I need to get my butt down to the Municipal Services building and get a business license right away.

Just what I needed. More taxes to pay.

Mayor Nutter, help me out here.

Stimulated!

2008-05-09T14:39:00.003-04:00

I got my stimulus payment today, all $886 of it for myself and my little dependent. I am trying to figure out how to pay my credit card bill and preschool tuition before M gets paid next week and before I get reimbursed for some work expenses, but I am going to leave that stimulus payment burning a hole in my savings account for a couple more weeks. I'll need it when we RIP OFF THE FRONT OF OUR HOUSE later this month. The excitement is starting to fade about the pretty new facade we'll have, and I'm fretting about the four-figure estimate.

M will be stimulated later because I don't think he elected direct deposit.

Money, money, money. What a headache.

Feeling the pinch at last

2008-05-04T10:01:00.004-04:00

Back in January, I wrote that I didn't anticipate feeling much impact from the economic turmoil. My employment is pretty secure. I can fairly easily afford my life as I have been living it. I'm one of the lucky ones.

Now, only a few months later, I'm beginning to feel a bit more strain from the state of the economy. My list of complaints sounds pathetically minor when I think of all the people losing their homes to foreclosure, losing their jobs and their health insurance, watching the revenue from their small businesses plummet, etc.

But still. My favorite kid-friendly neighborhood restaurant recently raised their prices by $3-4 dollars per entree. My small Japanese car is starting to seem like a gas guzzler to me, since it costs me almost $30 to fill the tank these days. And for the first time in my life, I'm seeing concrete examples of inflation, especially at the grocery store. Some of our staples have gone up so much that I'm often coming home from the store without buying them.

Take avocados. We consume a lot of them in our house. I'm from California, and avocados really make life worth living, as far as I'm concerned. And my spouse uses them to replace other, less healthy things. For example, he spreads a thin layer of avocado on bread when he's making a sandwich, instead of using mayonnaise. So avocados are one of the things that gets added to the grocery list when we see that we're running low, and that might even occasion a late-night, mid-week trip to the store.

In the Northeast, I expect to pay $1.50 at the high end, but usually closer to $1 per avocado.

Now, I can't find them anywhere for less than $1.79 each, and most of the time they're over $2. For the non-organic kind! It used to be I'd only buy one at that price, and wait til they dropped closer to a dollar before I'd stock up.

Artichokes, too. They're not a staple. They're a treat. But every time I go to the store I check to see if they're affordable. Affordable means two for $3. Now, they're usually $3.99 each. Recently they dropped to two for $5 and I pounced.

Don't even get me started on asparagus. Or milk. Or yogurt or spaghetti sauce or bread.

Again, I realize that my money problems aren't truly problems, not even close to what other people are experiencing. But I hate it that our income keeps going up, and our quality of life stays pretty much the same.

I'm no longer looking at the upcoming economic stimulus checks from the Feds as gravy. I'm now looking forward to getting the money because it will help me catch up a bit, so I'm not always playing a cup game to pay my bills.

Got my refund, but not my rebate

2008-04-28T17:24:00.003-04:00

I checked my savings account balance today (I've been trying not to obsessively check it every day) and saw that my tax refund has arrived. I won't be in the first round of people who receive stimulus payments, because my tax return wasn't processed by April 15. I didn't mail it til around a week before the deadline, and my refund arrived by direct deposit in my account on the 25th.

It looks like the refund, and the stimulus payment, will all go toward the $4000 house project I am suddenly compelled to do. When two different contractors look at your hosue and say the words "termites" and "water damage", you pretty much have to get out your checkbook.

Also, we decided at Xmas to replace our old car. Today the gear shift has been getting stuck in park again. I have had to get out of the car three times, in the rain, to jump on the back bumper a few times. That seems to jog it enough that I can get it into reverse or drive. So, gotta get off my duff and buy a new car SOON.

All this spending. I guess I'm doing my part to support the economy whether I like it or not.

Cafe etiquette

2008-04-28T10:47:00.002-04:00

Dear person sitting at the next table in the cafe:

Hot beverages require some moderate slurping to avoid burning your tongue. Cold beverage can be consumed almost silently.

Your coffee is cold. I know it is, because we arrived at the same time and that was over an hour ago.

Therefore, you have absolutely no excuse for continuing to slurp so loudly.

Please, go work at home if you insist on making that noise.

Signed,
Tense Freelancer Working Beside You

She ugly

2008-04-27T19:15:00.002-04:00

In 2004, we moved from a relatively integrated neighborhood to one that was almost completely black. My partner is Jewish, which means in this country he's considered white, and I'm sort of a western European mutt. Our son is blonde and blue-eyed. Our son was a baby when we moved in, and I was home with him a couple days a week, so I walked a lot. Hours and hours every week I spent walking with the stroller, trying to get him to sleep, trying not to go crazy in the house. I met tons of people. I gawked at the houses and gardens. And I used to amuse myself seeing how many blocks I'd have to get away from our house before I started seeing other white people. If I saw another white person within, say, four blocks of our house in any direction, I did a double-take. Then I usually recognized the person, and thought, oh, it's that one woman who lives by the train station. Or, oh, it's that social worker who visits my neighbor with all the kids once a month.

I was always aware of being an interloper. Maybe people didn't want us to be here. Maybe they saw us as gentrifying the neighborhood. Maybe they hate that I grow food in my front yard. Maybe if I pick up the trash in front of their house they'll think I'm judging them.

But almost every single person who I encountered in our neighborhood was welcoming. If they were surprised to see us there, they were careful not to show it.

Today I was out pruning in my front yard in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Three teenage girls walked past, talking to each other.

"This the wrong street. I'm telling you."

"No, this Herman Road. This the one we s'pose to turn down."

As usual, I butted in.

"You guys lost?" I asked.

One of the girls looked at me, dumbfounded. "She white," she said to her friends, not answering my question. "Look, she white."

"Shut up," her friend said.

"She ugly," the first girl said. By now they were past my house. I could hear her voice on the other side of the hedge. "She white. She ugly."

"I can't go anywhere with you," said her friend, laughing.

I guess you can trust teenagers to tell you what they're really thinking even if the adults won't.

Living in a row house

2008-04-17T16:23:00.004-04:00

When we bought our house four years ago, it was infested with roaches. It was so bad we had to wash every dish before using it because there was no telling what had befallen that dish when it was sitting in the cupboard. I avoided going downstairs after dark because then I'd have to see all my little housemates running away when I turned on the light. Ew, I get grossed out just thinking about it.

We live in a row house, which is like a glorified apartment, except that there is nobody above us and nobody below. We share walls with the neighbors on either side. When they cook, I can smell it. So I approached the next door neighbor, and asked her if she had a roach problem, too.

She was amazed, and pleased, that I asked. She said the previous owner never would have admitted to having bugs. Now that we were talking openly about it, she said yes, she did have roaches. We both called exterminators and the problem was pretty much solved.

The neighbor on the other side--not so open. When she replaced all the siding on the front of her house last year, I heard through the grapevine that she was doing it because her house had termites. I thought, my house is smack up against her house, so if she has termites I want to know about it. Maybe my house has termites, too.

But when I asked her about it, she was horribly affronted. She acted like I had asked if she herself had bugs. She claimed that the siding was letting in water (probably also true, but not the whole truth as it turns out).

Today I found out that my house DOES have termites. The houses were originally stucco, and back in the 70s when siding was The Next Big Thing, everybody on the block had their houses sided. But first they had to put up strips of wood so they'd have something to nail the siding to. That's where the termites are. What followed was water damage because the termites compromised the seal between the roof and the siding. Now the masonry underneath is crumbling from the water.

The end result is that I have to have all the siding torn off my house. I'm going to get quotes on getting the thing stuccoed, and also on getting it re-sided. I happen to have an irrational and passionate hatred for siding. So I'd like to do the masonry, even tho it will require more maintenance.

I feel several things at once:

What is wrong with my neighbor that she wouldn't tell me the truth when I asked? We're both middle class Americans. I guess I underestimate the cultural differences between us sometimes. I'm a Gen-X white girl from California, who thinks there's no shame in admitting your house has termites. She's 70-something, African American and churchgoing, and she's from the south altho she's lived in Philly for most of her adult life. Apparently she thinks I don't see the exterminator's truck coming to her house once a month. I just don't get why talking about bugs is taboo.

Also, christalmighty, this is going to cost more than anything else I've ever paid for, with the exception of the house itself. I've never even had a car that cost as much as this is going to cost.

Also, whoopee! I am going to have a new facade on my house! My house will no longer be so ugly. I couldn't justify tearing down the siding when it was just cosmetic, but now I have to do it.

I'll feel better when I get all the quotes so I'll know how much it will cost. Plus, we STILL have that hole in the floor in the front room. I got the quote on it, but still haven't had time to choose which tile I want.

My mortgage lender is hurting

2008-04-15T21:57:00.003-04:00

This Philadelphia Inquirer article, Wachovia suffers for ill-timed purhcase, talks about how Philadelphia's largest mortgage lender is the latest large bank to show signs of distress.

We got our loan with them in 2004. We borrowed from them because we already had brokerage accounts and checking accounts with them (they bought the investment firm I had an account with and also the bank where we both had our checking accounts within a few months of each other). We've since closed the investment account and also the checking accounts to move to a discount brokerage and a local neighborhood bank. So now we only have our mortgage with them.

I hope their recent drastic moves will help them get on an even keel.

In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at my mortgage. Mine is the boring kind: 20-year fixed rate at 5.25%. Sometimes it's nice to be boring.

My mother is buying a house

2008-04-14T19:55:00.004-04:00

Today I went with my mother and her partner to look at the house they are planning to make an offer on. It's out of the price range they set for themselves, but they're arguing that the house is so perfect, they wouldn't have to put any money into it. All the other houses, the ones they could afford, they'd have to put $100,000 into to make them "livable", so this house is really affordable after all. Huh. Interesting logic, isn't it. The problem is that nothing they consider "livable" exists within their price range. Therefore, it's their price range that is not livable for them.

So we walked up to this paragon of a house, and I gestured to the front steps, which were crumbling. I just had cement work done at my house, so I know the front steps and the sidewalk, which was totally spiderwebbed with cracks, will cost hundreds of dollars, minimum.

"Needs cement work," I said.

My stepmom looked at me with a brittle smile and exclaimed, "The house doesn't need any work! None at all!"

So I said, "Does that mean you don't want me to point out structural problems if I see them?"

Stepmom, brightly: "It is in perfect shape!"

Okay, I thought. If that's how you want to play this.

I have the worst poker face ever, but I was trying hard as I walked through the house to keep my real feelings off my face. It had been renovated by people who owned way, way, way too many books about interior decorating. I think they should have picked one style and stuck with it. Their taste seemed to vacillate between a "distressed" look, and an overly slick brushed-nickel accessories look. The whole thing looked embarrassingly expensive, and really overdone.

On the second floor, my step mom asked me, "What do you like about it?"

I stood there for several seconds enjoying the fact that she had asked me a very specific question, one she would want to hear the answer to. She didn't ask if I liked it. She didn't ask what I thought of the house. Why can't more people be so specific? The trouble was, it was taking such a big effort to be silent and not voice my real opinions that I just couldn't spare any energy to think of something NICE to say.

"Nothing?" she said.

"No, no. That's not it at all. It's very..."

"You don't like it." This from my mother, standing at the bottom of the stairs and looking up at me.

"That doesn't matter," I said. "It's not going to be my house. I'm glad you found a house you like."

The whole sickening thing about this is that it is the perfect house. For my stepmother. It does not feel like my mother's taste at all. I cannot imagine her in the house. It's not just that I think the house is ugly and ostentatious. It's not just that I am worried that they'll be stretched too thin financially. It's not just that I think they're in denial about how much work they'd actually need to put into the house.

It's just that I think my mother is allowing herself to be eclipsed by her partner. All the houses my mother has liked have been too funky for her partner. I think my mom is so relieved that her partner is finally agreeing to buy a house in Philadelphia, a town my mother chose and her partner reluctantly agreed to move to. So my mom is willing to buy this hideous house just because her partner likes it.

Which is why, after all these years, I still hate hate hate being the child of divorced parents. My father's house does not feel anything like my father. It feels like his girlfriend's house. My mother's houses over the years have felt less and less like my mother, and more and more like her partner's taste.

My parents were terrible together. They made each other miserable. They taught me painful, unforgettable things about how human beings treat each other.

But they had very compatible taste, for good quality furniture and simple design, restful but not dull colors, open rooms with lots of light.

I don't miss my parents' marriage, but I do miss my parents' house.

Writers who blog, bloggers who write

2008-04-14T19:23:00.003-04:00

Today I read these interesting perspectives on how blogging can make it hard to get other writing done.

Sarah Hepola writes at Slate.com about shutting down her blog to write a novel.

And Matthew Baldwin writes about why he has been posting less frequently on his blog at defectiveyeti.com.

I haven't taken the step of killing my blog, but it is helping my writing, and my sanity, that I'm posting less frequently.

Now, if only I could get off my butt and generate some ideas to send out queries to maybe get some other writing clients. Trouble is, I barely have time to write for the two clients I currently have. One of them just offered me some interesting work and I had to tell him I couldn't accept it til I hear from the first client about that Big Freelance Gig that may be happening sometime. Possibly. Probably, but who knows when.

Now, gotta go make twenty-five phone calls for one of my volunteer gigs:

"Hi, this is TBH calling from A Really Important Organization about something Really Important. Please don't hang up on me."

WTF?

2008-04-14T19:17:00.002-04:00

I ran into Whole Foods today between a meeting downtown and my regular work shift out in the sticks.

You'll be glad to know they now sell multi-grain sushi. I kid you not.

I can't think of anything that sounds less appetizing. Actually, I probably can, but I'll try not to.

2007 taxes: Some numbers and observations

2008-04-07T20:05:00.003-04:00

Because my income varies so much, there's an element of suspense that keeps me going through the hours it takes me to do my taxes every year. I still do my taxes myself with a pencil and a calculator. Eventually I'll probably switch to doing it electronically, but I haven't wanted to go there because I spend so much time on the computer already. With 3 paying jobs and 2 volunteer jobs the computer time starts to add up.

Here are some interesting things I learned while doing my Federal taxes this year.

AGI: $22,151. Not sure yet what my partner's AGI is. He hasn't finished his taxes yet.

Medical and dental expenses: nearly $6000. This number was even higher than I expected. My son and I both had a lot of dental work last year, and all the tests related to my cancer diagnosis meant a lot of copays and a lot of miles driving to and from the hospital.

I still couldn't itemize. I've never itemized in my life. Normally, I claim our son as a dependent, so I file as head of household. M files as single, and claims our mortgage interest, charitable contributions, etc. Even with the high medical/dental expenses this year, which were more than a quarter of my AGI, I was still better off with the standard deduction for head of household. I don't really regret all the time I spent tallying up the medical/dental expenses, though. It's good to know what to be prepared for in the future.

It pays to be a single mother. I very much hope that someday M and I will be able to file our taxes together. We do not intend to get married, ever, but we are a family and it's ludicrous that the IRS considers me a single mother. However, it does ease my annoyance at our screwy system somewhat when I find myself collecting a $155 credit for dependent care expenses, a $586 Child Tax Credit, a $1768 Earned Income Credit, and a $414 Additional Child Tax Credit. This is the first year I've qualified for the Additional Child Tax Credit. Next year I expect to qualify for none of these things.

I don't have to file quarterly estimated taxes in 2008! A helpful person at savingadvice.com answered a question I asked there about paying estimated taxes on freelance income throughout the year. With her help, I found IRS pub 505, which tells me that I just need to make sure my tax payments DURING 2008 (through employer withholdings, etc) equal 100% of the total tax I owed in 2007. For me, that number is $1182. My part-time dayjob has already withheld around $700 in federal taxes. To be safe, I directed a couple hundred bucks of my refund to be applied to my 2008 taxes. The payroll withholdings during the rest of the year should easily cover the rest.

Gotta get my motivation back up. I finished the Federal taxes last night. I still need to copy them and mail them out, and then I need to get my state tax forms (I filed late last year so they didn't send my handy packet) and do my state taxes. That usually only takes me a couple of hours, but still, I want to be done!

My economic stimulus payment won't be here any time soon. This article indicates that stimulus payments will be processed according to social security numbers, but also that you won't get your payment on time unless your federal taxes are PROCESSED, not just filed, by April 15. I doubt mine will be processed by then if I haven't even mailed them yet. Oh well. I'll probably do something boring and responsible with my stimulus payment anyway.

I'm getting a refund. I'm not supposed to be happy about a refund. I'm supposed to see it as an interest-free loan to the government, which is bad. But I am very happy that the money I had been saving from my 2007 freelance income to pay my self-employment taxes can now be used for other things. I left some of it in my tax savings account in case I fall a bit short when it's time to pay 2008 taxes. I moved the rest into our Roth IRAs. I am not going to be able to max M's for 2007 before next week, but I'm still pleased with the progress I've made.

Miscellany

2008-03-31T19:55:00.007-04:00

We got back last night from a conference I attended in a nearby city. M and L came with me, and hung out together while I attended conference sessions and went out for expensive dinners with colleagues. This was my third time going on a business trip with my family, and I'm getting better at it. I got some decent luggage, I care less about impressing people, and my child is older and easier to manage. Sometimes. He can mostly be relied upon to sound precocious and well-behaved; during his first conversation with my coworkers this week, he told them he's an omnivore.

I've begun to see this as a sort of crusade. If I bring my kid to conferences, maybe other people will too. Maybe conference planners will start organizing childcare. Maybe there will start to be conference sessions about developing family-friendly policies. There's no telling what will happen.

Today was the last day of my son's spring break, so tomorrow he'll go back to school. I'm working at the library tonight, and it feels like the closest thing to being alone that I've experienced in almost two weeks.

In other news, I did my net worth report for the month. We're up $2881 to $239,167, because I got paid for some freelance work and we got a bunch of long-awaited reimbursements for medical and dependent care expenses and for transportation. Our retirement accounts held depressingly steady despite the usual deposits and even some extra deposits. I hope all these contributions while the market sucks will put us in a good spot when the economy eventually, hopefully, starts to recover.

No word yet on whether I'll get that big freelance gig. Although I'd like to know whether it will happen, I'm glad that the weekly deadlines haven't started up yet.

This week I have a visit to the dentist that will probably end up being a root canal, and I also have a CT scan of the pelvis, abdomen and chest. Joy. Nothing like having a little IV contrast to look forward to.

So, if I didn't completely chase away all my readers with my recent waffling about whether I should kill my blog, now you know what's going on with me.