Frugal Zeitgeist

2014 goals

2014-01-11T18:04:00.001-05:00

Over the past week, I finally managed to figure out my goals for the year. As always, I tried to write them to be S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound), and I think I did a little better in that respect than I usually do. While I have grand intentions of checking in on my progress regularly, I'll probably keep updates here to quarterly (if that). Here's what 2014 looks like from my perspective:

Buy long-term care insurance
This is by far the most important item on the list. I held off on doing it last year because I was expecting my employer to bundle a new plan into our annual benefits enrollment, since our prior plan was cancelled after the provider decided to exit the business. Well, guess what? Benefits enrollment came, and there were no long-term care insurance options! The only way this is going to happen is if I do it myself on the open market, so I've been learning as much as I can about long-term insurance and things to consider, as well as scouting out companies and brokers. I shortlisted four providers, and I've been in contact with two brokers who represent all of them. I should have proposals coming next week, but I also have a long list of questions based on the research I did. I have a much better initial impression of one of the two brokers, and his Google footprint indicates that he's been in the business for many years. That said, this is a decision that's going to cost me upwards of $4000 per year for the rest of my life, so I want to make sure I do plenty of due diligence.

Save $52,000
This is the lowest savings goal I've had in many years. Four factors are contributing to the big step backwards: First, with paying for living space in my home state and traveling there more frequently, I'm spending more than I used to, and that's not going to change anytime soon (I hope). There are other new costs over the past few years, i.e. taking trips with A. and professional athletic coaching, that I'm doing because they're meaningful to me. I'm not cutting back on those, so my savings goal needs to be a little more realistic. Second, my raises for the past several years have been lousy. I'm not expecting that to change anytime soon, either. Changing employers is still far too expensive to consider doing unless my retirement benefits change for the worse, so I'm staying the course for now. Third, as I mentioned above, long-term care insurance is going to take a bite out of my savings from this year onward, to the tune of $4000 or more per year. Fourth, there's a major structural renovation project in my apartment building that is badly needed and long overdue, and all shareholders are paying for our individual portions of cost either up front (the cheapest option) or having it amortized with interest as part of our maintenance over the next five years. I'm paying up front, and that's going to be around $4000 as well. I put together a budget (yes, a formal budget! I haven't used one of those since I paid off my mortgage!) that factors in my normal spending expectations plus all of these items, and I came out with a little under $52,000 as potential savings. I rounded it up because I think goals are more worthwhile if there's a little bit of additional stretch effort required.

Run three marathons
Three will bring me to twenty total, and that's a bucket list goal. I'd like to run more after that and in fact I already have a qualification for Boston 2015, but I won't be able to do this forever. If I get to twenty, I won't feel too bad if it turns out that's the end.

Break 3:30 in the marathon
I came SO close to this a few years ago. I'm still running near the top of my game, but the window for another all-time best is narrowing. If it's going to happen, it needs to be in the next year or two.

Core workouts twice weekly (when I'm not traveling)
If I'm pressed for time, this is the first thing I drop when I'm working out. That's not good: With a bad disk in my back, a strong core is really important. Two separate exercises for about 10-12 minutes total is a decent base (although more is better), so that's the minimum I'm looking to achieve. I don't lift weights when I'm in my home state, so I'll take a break on this during those times as well.

Stretch twice weekly (when I'm not traveling)
I never do this. I need to; I am horribly stiff and inflexible, and it puts me at risk for running injuries. Twice per week for ten minutes is doable; I just need to do it. This falls into the category of things I do at the gym, so I think taking a break while I'm traveling is both reasonable and realistic.

Maintain my weight within a five pound range
I'm very muscular; 140-145 is healthy and realistic for me, and it keeps me at a flat-stomached size 6 on average. It's ridiculously easy for my weight to blip upwards, especially now that the 2013 sugar challenge is over, so I'm really going to make an effort. I weighed in at 147 the day I made this decision, so I'm trying to get a few pounds off now.

Play music once weekly (when I'm not traveling)
I used to play music years ago, and once upon a time I was quite good at an amateur level. I was really fed up with it when I decided to stop music lessons as a teenager, though, and now I haven't touched my instrument in nearly three decades. It's here with me in New York now and the amount I've forgotten is shocking. but I've spent a few hours thus far reteaching myself the basics, and it's slowly coming back. I'm still at a very beginner level, but it's a start. I'm enjoying it very much so far, but there's a more serious reason for doing this: I've read that actively playing music promotes brain health and might help ward off dementia. It's not going to hurt and it might actually help in future, so it's worth a shot, especially since it's a lot more fun now than I remember it being years ago. That said, knowing my schedule, I think committing to more than once a week as a goal is a recipe for failure.

Track savings and spending using my budget
I haven't used a formal budget in about five years, but enough has changed since then in terms of my spending that I think it'll be useful both in terms of spending mindfully, and in being realistic about how much I can save and how I can focus spending to maximize savings.

The last item I have in mind is part of my long-term plan: I hit a major financial milestone by achieving a million dollars in net worth excluding real estate, and my next major milestone is to double that. It's likely to take around six years but I think it would be really neat to nail this one before I turn 50, so I'm aiming to hit the two million dollar mark in five years. I'm not treating this as a goal as such since there are external factors (primarily market performance) that will largely determine my success, but managing the factors I can control (e.g., remaining diligent about savings and investment) will absolutely help.

2014 will be challenging, but so far it's off to a good start. I think I'll go play some music now.

Happy, happy new year

2014-01-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone so quickly. It's been eventful, and you already know some of it if you've read posts from earlier in the year. The Boston Marathon bombing in particular hit me really hard, and it took a while to get over it. I requalified by a huge margin (this is one case in which getting older works in my favor, since I'm still near the top of my marathon game but my qualifying time is adjusted based on the expectation that runners slow down as they get older), so I'll be back on the starting line in April.

In March, I mentioned that if the stellar growth in the stock market we saw in Q1 continued, I had an off chance of my net worth excluding real estate reaching a million dollars. I didn't actually expect this to happen, but my 401(k) alone returned a whopping 36.6% over the course of the year. I crossed the million dollar mark early in December, and following yesterday's market close, my net worth reached a grand total of $1,018,625, or about $1.35 million if you factor in my real estate. This is a huge milestone, and it's taken seventeen and a half years to get here. On the way, I got married and then divorced less than two years later; bought an apartment and paid off the mortgage in six and a half years; mourned my dad's death and my mom's catastrophic stroke, recovery, and then gradual loss of independence; survived two really nasty recessions without being laid off; lost more than half of my net worth twice and then regained it and much more because I kept investing instead of cashing out of the stock market when it tanked; stayed with the same employer but progressed in my career; had some good relationships and some not so good ones; fell in love a couple of times; strengthened some friendships and let others fade away; and completed seventeen marathons. It's been a good life so far, but I think the best is yet to come.

Hitting the million dollar mark doesn't really change anything as far as my financial planning is concerned. I saved $60,700 this year (which was short of my goal of $65,000) and my employer kicked in $4700 in deferred 401(k) match, so my total investment return was over $218,000, or just under 30%. That's insane and I don't expect it to happen again in my lifetime. Also, a million dollars isn't going to be enough to have the kind of retirement I want, especially since I'm increasingly confident that my employer-provided pension benefit is going to be severely curtailed before I retire. As of today, new employees will be subject to a different calculation that will result in lower benefits than current employees have. That change doesn't affect me, but another one might: Very senior executives were moved into a completely different pension plan. I read that as a signal that in the short to medium term, the rest of us are going to be hit very hard by future changes that will cut back our benefits or possibly eliminate pensions altogether. In other words, I'm going to keep on saving and investing with the goal of retiring for good in twelve years, and I'm not counting on my employer's retirement plan to make that happen.

One big worry that colored 2013 was the expectation that my job was going to move out of state. I agonized over what to do if that happened, ultimately deciding that if I had to choose between leaving my job and leaving New York, I'd leave my job. Since then, there's been a massive change: Not only is my job staying in the tri-state area, I've received a directive that I can't hire anywhere else. I can't describe the sense of relief. Work itself remains terribly hard: I'm still working 60-70 hours per week with no end in sight, although I now have close to twenty people reporting into my department. No matter how many people I hire, I still can't keep up with our aggregate workload. The irony is that I'm having a terrible time hiring anyone at all: The skill set I'm looking for is extremely specialized and in very short supply at the level of expertise I need, so finding qualified candidates is difficult to nearly impossible. The fact that the organization as a whole continues to remain in flux doesn't help, either. I'm trying to embrace the challenges as best as I can, despite the frustrations: I'm in peak pension growth years, so unless my pension is eliminated, quitting my job is simply too expensive.

Finally, while I made a good-faith effort at setting S.M.A.R.T goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) for the year, I didn't do a good job of checking those goals regularly to confirm that I was tracking against them. That said, here's a recap of the goals and how I did:

Save $65,000
I didn't achieve this one: I saved $60,700. The deficit came from several sources: I pay $2400 annually in rent in my home state since my mom no longer has a place where I can stay, and I haven't cut my spending elsewhere to recoup this expense. I also paid a lot more income tax due to converting non-Roth IRA's to Roth in 2012, and my homeowner's insurance is significantly higher than it was a couple of years ago thanks to realizing I was underinsured and correcting it. With an anemic pay raise, higher commuting costs thanks to a lost tax break, and a big jump in my apartment maintenance fees, I'm going to have to reset this figure to something more attainable in 2014.

Create a revocable living trust
Done! And it didn't cost anything outside of the $7 per month I pay for my employer's group legal plan! I moved all of my assets into the trust except for my apartment: My building's attorney made this so difficult (which is pretty common in New York) that I decided to drop it for now and possibly revisit in future.

Save for periodic expenses in advance
I totally failed on this one. I had a lofty goal of squeezing money out every month to build a reserve fund for irregular expenses like end of year charity contributions, a lump-sum homeowner's insurance payment, and the like. Since I didn't even manage to hit my savings goal, there simply wasn't any reserve. I could go a lot more white-knuckle on my spending, I suppose, but I don't want to suck too much fun out of my life. I sacrificed so much when I was younger, largely so I wouldn't have to sacrifice as much now.

Don't buy any work dresses
Let's call this a draw: I didn't spend any money on dresses, but I did buy other clothes, some for work, some not. I think for 2014, I'll establish a clothing budget of a few hundred dollars and use that to guide purchases instead, based on the premise that when it's gone, it's gone.

Lose eight pounds in January, and four thereafter
I lost seventeen pounds and have kept most of it off, so this one was successful. I'm running well, and I feel really good. I went on a sugar ban this year (no sweets and as little processed sugar as possible, with a few exceptions like Chinese food and occasional cocktails). I broke it badly for four days when I was really sick in December, but I kept on track for the rest of the year and it helped tremendously with weight maintenance and overall well-being. I relied too much on fake sugar for things like sugar-free caramel lattes (which I make at home) and sugar-free ice cream when I was desperate for the taste of something sweet, but since those don't trigger overeating or make my blood sugar whipsaw the way actual sugar does, I'm not too bothered by it.

Work from home twice weekly
This is hard to do sometimes, but I largely succeeded and it's worth it. It's made the demands of my job easier to manage.

Run three marathons
I ran four. The tragedy notwithstanding, the Boston Marathon was a really solid race. The second was three weeks later. I was still very fatigued from Boston, and it wasn't a strong race. I wasn't happy with the third either, so I signed up for a fourth one six weeks after the third. It wasn't my best time ever, but it was my best time for the year on the second hardest course, so I was quite satisfied. I'm working with a coach I've worked with before starting this month. I was the fastest woman in my 2013 training program, and I'm one of the slowest in the new one. That's good: It's always better to run with people who are faster than I am, because it makes me push myself harder.

I'm still working on my goals for 2014, but I'll get those posted in the next couple of weeks. Overall, it was a pretty good year: phenomenal from a financial perspective; very hard and stressful in terms of work, but the bet I made to stick with my employer paid off in terms of how the job relocation fizzled out; and deeply satisfying on a personal front. A. and I didn't move in together and I don't think we will at this point, but we're happy. My mom remains stable, I managed to overcome my really bad 2012 running injury, and and I have wonderful friends. I have no complaints and only a few small regrets about 2013, and I'm geared up and ready for a great year ahead. I hope 2014 is a banner year for you as well.

Persistence pays off

2013-08-22T12:59:00.002-05:00

Every time I travel for work, I incur some sort of out of policy expense that our finance division tells me isn't reimbursable. On this past trip, I really hit the jackpot: Three claims were rejected, to the tune of over $170.00 out of pocket for company travel.

I actually expected to have problems with one of them: I took my team out to dinner at a really nice place, and we went beyond the standard approved dollar amount per head for dinner. I remember cringing when a second round of drinks arrived, but I think it looks terrible to nickel and dime good, hardworking people over stupid things. The total overage was $25, so I submitted the expense anyway to see if it would get kicked back. It did, so I decided to just eat that one and be done with it.

The other two expenses that got kicked back ticked me off. They were for insurance and GPS for my rental car, and that just seems petty. I wrote a business justification stating (truthfully) that there was no guidance available about insurance policies when I booked the rental car, that I was driving in an area I've never been to, and that I asked for all the insurance I could get because I drive so seldom that I was terrified of getting into an accident. For the GPS, I added that the office complex and nearby hotels are a good hour from the closest airport, with directions that are not straightforward. The bossman was nice enough to write a supporting statement instructing Finance to cover the charges. Several hours later, I received same-day approval and reimbursement.

I hate pushing back when someone says no; it's just not something I enjoy doing. Similar to the point about always checking return policies in my last post, though, when it comes to money, the first NO shouldn't always be the final answer.

Rip-roaring July

2013-08-03T13:33:00.002-05:00

Another month down, and we're on the backstretch of 2013. It was a pretty good month overall, and here are the highlights:

--I came back last night from a visit to the state where my job might move. This was a business trip for work, but not directly related to the question of my job or anyone else's relocating. While the place I went was a lot nicer than I expected, I really, really, really don't want to live there. That said, I'm getting ever so slightly more confident that my job won't end up moving. We have new senior management weighing in on this decision, and it's starting to look like the new leadership thinks there are benefits to not deporting the majority of our umbrella group out of state. It's all rumor at this point, except for one thing: I need to hire some new people, and I requested and received approval to do so in our current location. I hope it's a harbinger of how the job location question is ultimately going to play out.

--The stock market came rip-roaring back, and my net worth tapped $900,000 midway through July. It immediately dropped after that, but a general recovery plus my end of month investment brought me back to that figure on the very last day of July. That's an increase of $48,000 since the end of June, $43,000 of which came from investment gains. With investment gains totaling $125,000 in seven months, I'm holding my breath in hopes this trend continues for the rest of the calendar year.

--No decision yet on shacking up with A, but I'm also not pushing the issue. I've decided to hold off on any renovation or apartment shopping for the time being: I want to focus on my financial goals for the rest of this year, and the New York residential market is way too hot to even consider buying a new apartment right now, anyway. As it is, I'm on the hook to spend several thousand dollars on full window replacements at the end of the year: It's a building-wide initiative, and it's long overdue.

--As stretched as I feel both personally and professionally these days, it's about to get harder: After doing some research, I'm increasingly convinced that it would be very much in my interest to obtain an additional professional certification related to my job. It's one I can do via self-study for a really hard exam (I've done it before for other certifications) and applying relevant job experience, so I'm about to pull the trigger on ordering study materials. I talked to a few people in another group who already hold this certification; they gave me some really helpful advice and immediately agreed to provide supporting statements affirming that my work experience applies, so it's time to get moving.

--I got all the paperwork done and submitted to move my last investment into my revocable living trust, so all that's outstanding is my apartment. Maybe I'll take that fight up with my building later in the year, but it's not a priority right now.

--New York State finally provided my adjusted tax refund, just in time for my end of July investment.

--Finally, a little retail win: Yesterday in the out of state office, I zipped up my pants in the restroom, and the zipper promptly broke. It's a bad break and not repairable, and the pants were not cheap and I've only had them for seven months. I contacted the retailer, who has a really good return policy, and they confirmed that as long as I can provide proof of purchase (which I have in the form of an order confirmation, since I shredded the receipt months ago), they'll refund the purchase. Even better, the same pants are still available in my size from the same retailer at the same price, so I can just re-order them. (I have another pair of the same model but in a different color that are just fine, so I think the zipper problem is a one-off defect. If the retailer had been uncooperative, I was going to raise the issue with the manufacturer.) The moral of the story is that it ALWAYS pays to check on return policies. You may end up with a pleasant surprise like I did, but even if you don't, you won't be any worse off than before.

How was your July? Any special highlights or lowlights?

My new toys

2013-07-21T21:09:00.001-05:00

One of my minor vices is that I really, really like non-fat vanilla latte drinks. This is a pricey jones to indulge, so I used to limit myself to one only for special occasions. As is often the case with treats, the "special occasions" morphed into "Well, I work so hard, so I deserve. . . ", and the frequency increased to about one per week. That's not a huge deal in itself, but whenever I have a 7:00 a.m. meeting, I usually slam a strong, black coffee from the same chain (the big one; you know which one I mean) on the way to work, and 7:00 a.m. meetings are now a weekly or bi-weekly event. As a result, the costs for coffee outside of what I make with my really, really nice drip coffeemaker are adding up to more than I'd like.

While I was on the West Coast last week, I learned about a nifty little gadget, shown in the picture above: It's a battery powered wand for frothing milk for cappucino or latte drinks, and one rated quite highly online costs $20. Sugar-free vanilla syrup is expensive when bought by the liter, but works out to less than $6 per bottle in packs of three liters. Those two things alone wouldn't motivate me to make a purchase except for one other thing: Someone gave me a really good stovetop espresso maker (also shown above) more than ten years ago from a trip to Europe. I haven't used it much because espresso alone is a little strong for me, but I kept it because it's a pretty little gadget and I always thought that maybe one day I'd find a use for it. The current model, which doesn't look any different to me, retails for $90 online.

I had the opportunity to drink homemade non-fat vanilla lattes just about every day while I was out West, and that's a habit I can really get behind. I ended up ordering a frothing wand of my own, plus three liters of sugar-free vanilla syrup for $38.17. Add to that half a pound of Italian espresso ($4) and a liter of skim milk ($3.19), and for $45.36 plus the stovetop espresso maker I already have, I'll be alert for a long, long time at a heck of a lot lower cost than the cost of buying a non-fat vanilla latte once a week.

The best part? I can drink it without having to put on my pants and go out!

Have you figured out any cost-effective ways to indulge your favorite vices?

Pensions and opportunity cost

2013-07-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

My favorite Chinese fortune cookie advice reads Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Commenter and awesome long-time reader goldsmith raised some questions about my pension after my last post, in which I mentioned that leaving my job is a very expensive decision. I thought it would be worthwhile to spend a little time explaining what I mean by that, as well as clarifying some of the factors around my pension that make it such an integral part of my financial decision-making.

At my job, I have both a 401k (mostly traditional, although I've been contributing to a Roth 401k ever since it was introduced five years ago) and a pension. I fund my 401k myself, with my employer kicking in a deferred 3% match as long as I remain employed through December 31 of the contribution year. If I leave for any reason before December 31, I won't receive the match for that year.

My pension is funded by my employer, and I vested five years after my start date. About five years ago, my employer made a pension benefits calculator available to employees. Like the dork I am, the first thing I did was calculate out what my benefit would be if I left on my hire date for every year of my employment up to age 65, and then plotted it on a graph. The results were interesting. Things I learned were:

--Pension growth was flat from vesting date until my thirteenth anniversary.
--My pension doesn't increase by the same amount every year. 2011 and 2012 were sweet spots in which my monthly benefit increased by more than $250. The sweet spot gets smaller in 2013 and 2014, and from 2015 through 2019 the monthly benefit increase is less than $150. By 2019, my pension will be worth $14,000 per year more than it is today.
--In 2020, which is my 25th anniversary year, my pension hits a major sweet spot and jumps by over $1000 per month. That year alone, it will increase in value by $14,000.
--Growth from that point onwards levels out to about $175 per month for the next five years, stopping altogether at my 30 year mark.

I update the graph every year to account for my pay increase. While the curve shifts upwards, the shape doesn't change at all.

The fun part comes with the actual numbers: If I left my job today, I'd be able to collect just under $30,000 per year starting at age 65. If I hang in there for another 12 years and never get another raise (unlikely), I'll collect just under $70,000 per year starting at age 60. If I factor nominal raises into the calculations (which I'm doing via Excel, since the pension calculator doesn't do that), I think that figure will actually be between $80,000 and $90,000 per year from age 60.

Assuming a very conservative withdrawl rate of 2% per year, a guaranteed annual income of $30,000 represents 1.5 million dollars that I don't have to have in the bank at age 65. (2% of $1.5M = $30,000.) That's what I would get if I left my employer today. Using the same conservative withdrawl rate, a guaranteed annual income of $80,000 represents 4 million dollars that I don't have to have in the bank at age 60. (2% of $4M = $80,000.) In addition, getting my pension at age 60 instead of at age 65 means an extra $400,000 in real cash.

This is why I say that leaving my company at this point is a very expensive decision: I don't think a pay package elsewhere would be remotely competitive to what I'd be leaving behind in terms of retirement benefits. As a result, the job situation has to be truly intolerable for me to voluntarily walk away. At the very least, I should do everything I can to hang in there until I reach the year 25 sweet spot.

Of course, the caveat is that I'm assuming that my employer's pension program will not be cancelled (many have been), that I don't involuntarily lose my job, and that the company itself doesn't go bust. If any one of those things happens, all bets are off. I've actually seen colleagues who were counting on the pension as their only source of retirement income lose their jobs, and the sudden realization that their retirements will look vastly different than anticipated isn't pretty at all. As a result, it's also critically important to keep saving and investing and not think of the pension as anything other than a nice side benefit to working hard for many years.

The take-away I'd hope other people get from all this is that if you have a pension with your current employer, make sure you understand when you vest, how benefits are calculated, what the growth curve looks like (you can usually work this out manually from the documentation if you need to. That's what I did before the calculator became available, although it was a huge pain in the butt), and what the odds are that you'll actually be able to collect on it. All of that information should be factored into decision-making and/or salary negotiation when looking for a new job.

That said, I still think that people with pensions should save, invest, and live like the pension doesn't exist, simply because unplanned benefits are in every way better than horrible surprises.

Six down, six to go

2013-07-01T13:10:00.002-05:00

The first half of 2013 is in the books, and it's been decidedly mixed. In no particular order, here are a few highlights and lowlights that come to mind:

--Last night, I celebrated the close of June with a plumbing emergency that kept me up until 2:00 a.m. There was a blockage elsewhere in my building, but it caused my kitchen sink to erupt with really foul black water. The eruption became so bad that the water to all of the apartments in my line had to be shut down until an emergency crew came out to fix it. A. was fantastic: He bailed nastywater with me and then refused to leave until the plumber arrived, even though it was getting really late by that point.

--Work is still unstable. I really don't know how it's going to play out in terms of my job being relocated. Odds are increasingly high that we'll also end up with a massive reorganization and although I don't think I'd lose my job out of it, that's certainly something that will impact who I work for and what I do.

--I'm working a ridiculous amount, not less than sixty hours per week since February, and usually more. That said, I'm not leaving my employer voluntarily: I have too many years in the pension system, and that makes it a very expensive decision. There's one exception, though: If my job moves to another state, I'll take severance and be done with it. I'm pretty burned out, and I don't want to leave New York.

--My will and trust are set up and I moved all but about $1300 of my assets outside of real estate into the trust. (I'm leaving my apartment out for now both for tax reasons and because my co-op is incredibly difficult about this, but the rest should be done in the next few weeks.) I'm waiting to see what my employer offers in the way of long term care insurance during our next annual enrollment before I do anything further about that.

--I paid some stupid tax this year: I filed my taxes in March, and not only did I not get a refund, I ended up paying out of pocket for the taxes on the $12,000 I converted from a regular IRA to a Roth last year. That was painful enough, but I totally forgot one important piece of information when filing: I sold a dog of a mutual fund for a significant loss last year with the intention of offsetting my taxes for the IRA conversion, but guess what? I forgot all about it! I had to refile my taxes, and that was another $200 I paid to my accountant. I ended up getting $500 back from the IRS, but New York State still hasn't sent me a check for the nearly $400 the refile is supposed to bring. I'm still out of pocket on the conversion fees, but I keep reminding myself it'll pay off later, when I start cashing it in and don't owe taxes on the growth.

--I saw a web posting for a larger, sunnier apartment for sale in my building, and that gave me the upgrade bug. I agonized over it, but finally concluded that this isn't the time.

--I also have the renovation bug: There's a long, long list of mostly cosmetic changes I want to make to my apartment, but none of them are cheap. The question then becomes whether it makes sense to invest in an apartment that I don't think is going to be my lifetime home, or just plan on selling as is and upgrading when the time is right.

--Part of the reason I want to change my living environment is because A's coming up on the end of his lease, so the question of whether or not we move in together is going to come up again. It already did, briefly, and we agreed not to discuss it just yet. He's not crazy about my apartment, and I'm sure that my urge to change my living environment is driven in part by wanting a home where he wants to live with me.

I know that potentially furthering a romantic relationship is a TERRIBLE reason to make changes in a place that's totally paid for and one in which I've been really happy up until now. It would also result in putting myself at financial risk at a very bad time, given that I don't know what's going to happen with my job. I also suspect that A's not totally ready to take that step in our relationship, and truthfully, I go back and forth myself on whether it's really something I'm ready to do. We don't want kids, and at 44 and 46, there's really no compelling reason for us to ever think about marriage. We're each pretty set in our ways as well, and we both need a lot of emotional space. While moving in together (assuming we moved into my place) would be great for us financially, I'm not sure we'd be happier with each other or happier in general for it. That's potentially a big contrast to where we are now: We drive other nuts from time to time, but we're very much in love and the time we have together is precious. Stay tuned if you want to see how this shakes out, I guess.

Reviewing the financial aspect of the past six months, it's been an overwhelmingly good start to the year. Despite the nasty thump the stock market took in the last two weeks of June, my net worth is up considerably. I started the year at about $735,000 and ended it at $852,000, excluding real estate. Here's where the (rounded) $117,000 increase came from:

--Deferred 401(k) match: $4500
--Savings, including 401(k) and IRA: $30,500
--Investment returns: $82,000

The calculated return is a little over 11%, but since my net worth also includes cash and bonds, my actual return from the stock market alone is closer to 15%.

At the start of the year, I thought there was a very long-shot chance at hitting a million before the end of December. I still think it's a long shot, but perhaps not quite as long as it seemed six months ago.

Meanwhile, I'm about $2000 behind on my savings goal of $65,000. Part of that is the result of the tax event I triggered with my IRA conversion and subsequent idiocy about the loss I forgot to write off, but not being as careful as I should be about spending has a lot to do with it. I'm trying to buckle down harder on this one in the second half of the year, but I'm not as focused as I was when I had the really concrete goal of paying off my mortgage.

All in all, there's been more good this year so far than bad, and I'm slowly learning to live with uncertainty, which is a hard thing for a carefully calculated risk-taker to do.

I do believe that better days are coming. I have to.

How was the first half of your year?

Doing grown-up stuff

2013-05-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

This is where a goals recap post is supposed to go, but I don't think I'll do one this month. The short story is that I'm a little more behind on savings than I was last month (the Boston Marathon trip was budgeted, but it was still expensive), and I've knocked off one marathon out of the three I had planned. The second is this weekend, and I'll be glad to see the end of the spring season. I hope this one helps make the horrible events in Boston recede a little.

The biggest progress I made towards goals this month was to do something really grown-up and completely overdue: I finally signed my revocable living trust, pourover will, advanced health directive, and power of attorney forms. The hangup on my trust was that my co-op's attorney has very specific requirements for incorporating my apartment into the trust. While the lawyers were wrangling it out, I came across an article in the New York Times Real Estate section stating that due to a change in the tax laws this year, co-ops that are owned by a trust instead of an individual are not eligible for STAR tax abatement, a plan that cuts me a small break on taxes. (My building issues a shareholder assessment in the same month to suck that money right back up, so there's no extra cash in my pocket. This is pretty common in New York City.) I checked it out with my lawyer, and he confirmed the change. As a result, I decided that because of the tax implications, it would make more sense not to put the apartment in the trust at this time. That made it easy to wrap up the paperwork.

The next part is to move assets into the trust. I can't put my 401(k) or IRA assets into the trust, so I've been making phone calls this week to find out what happens if I make the trust the beneficiary of the 401(k) and IRA's instead of my designated beneficiary. I found out a few important points:

--If my designated beneficiary is a spouse, the assets can be left in the existing accounts, or placed into an account in the beneficiary's name. The beneficiary can then take distributions at any time after age 59 1/2, or cash it out as preferred. The assets would not be subject to probate.

--If my designated beneficiary is a person but not a spouse, the assets can be rolled into an inherited IRA or cashed out within five years. The assets would not be subject to probate.

--If my designated beneficiary is a trust, the assets must be cashed out by the beneficiary of the trust within five years, or systematic withdrawls need to be initiated within a year. There is no option for an inherited IRA.

Since these assets don't go into probate and the options are more limited if a trust is the beneficiary, I'm leaving them as is. This weekend, I'm getting my checking and savings accounts moved into the trust, and then I'll do the same with my investment accounts. It's kind of a hassle, but not nearly as complicated as I expected. My co-op will not be in the trust (for now, anyway), but even though it means probate, the pourover will takes care of it.

The next big grown-up item on my list wasn't on my goals list, but it should have been: I need long-term care insurance. Out of curiosity, I recently got my genotype done through one of the companies that does DNA analysis for both medical and ancestry results. I learned quite a few surprising facts in both areas, but what made me the happiest was the fact that I actually have less risk than average of developing Parkinson's and a whole host of stomach and bowel cancers from genetic causes. Apparently, I'm also highly resistant to the most common strain of the cruise ship vomiting and diarrhea bug as well. I'm not planning to take a cruise (no interest), but for some reason, I'm weirdly proud of that.

While there was nothing horrible and scary in my results, they did have a fairly sobering element: My genetic risk factors for two medical issues with the potential to be quite serious are higher than average, significantly higher in one instance. There's still less than a 25% chance of getting one of these things from genetic causes and less than a 15% chance of getting the other from something inherent in my wiring, but it's enough for me to get the religion about long-term care insurance.

I'm sorry I'm not going into detail any further on these risks. I might come back to this topic after I get long term care insurance, but there is no legal protection against genetic discrimination for long term care insurance in the US, so I don't think it's wise to say more right now.

I should also add that I don't think genetic predisposition is predetermination. For many serious medical conditions, there are a variety of environmental factors that can raise or lower risks. As a lifelong athlete, I have a really good shot at reducing my risk factors significantly, and now I'm more motivated than ever to stay fit and active. Nevertheless, though, I guess thinking about these things is what you do when you're ambling towards middle age. It all seems so grown-up, which made me think of this one-hit wonder from my youth. Sorry about the sound quality, but enjoy the '80's hair!

I can't stop thinking about it

2013-04-26T19:17:00.002-05:00

I can't stop thinking about the bombings in Boston. It's been nearly two weeks, and it's on my mind constantly. I'm sure the fact that I'm obsessively following the news (even though I don't have television) isn't helping.

I'm functioning just fine at work and sleeping all right. My relationship remains great, and in fact A. (love that guy) just landed a new job he really wanted today. I've had a terrible cold this past week, but that's pretty normal after a marathon. There were a few close calls among my friends (not me, not even remotely me; I was long past the finish and two blocks away from the blasts), but no one I know was injured. I just can't get it off of my mind: Every minute of every day, there it is.

I lived here in New York through the bombings on 9/11 too, and I don't think even that weighed on me as much as this does. The job stuff that's going on at the moment (waiting to find out whether my job will move out of state or not) should really be at the forefront of my mind, but it's not: I've been too innundated with work to give it much much attention, so I haven't been doing much on that front other than working every angle to give my team the best possible shot at not being forced to decide between moving and losing our jobs.

I'm not afraid to go back to Boston. I requalified for next year's marathon, so I already made hotel reservations at the same place we always stay. There are a lot of crazies out there, and what happened in Boston could happen anywhere. I just hate the fact that right now, I want to let it go and I can't.

Boston Marathon

2013-04-15T22:40:00.001-05:00

Yup, I ran it today. Thank you so much for the emails/comments checking in to see if I'm all right. It was quite good as races go, and I crossed the finish line well before the explosions. I was walking on Clarendon Street back to my hotel at the time, and it was obvious right away what the noise and smell were.

Many of my friends and teammates were there, and everyone is safe and accounted for. Quite a few people I know are still there, but I managed to get home tonight with my SO and another friend I went up with.

It's been a horrible day.

Controlling what I can, letting go of the rest

2013-03-29T17:42:00.001-05:00

The first quarter of 2013 is done and in the books, and it's been kind of a rough ride so far. Work has gone completely nuts, to the point where I was granted several emergency hires (two start next week, and the other two positions are still open), and I ended up having to cancel my vacation in order to put out fires. I haven't worked less than 65 hours per week in two months, and most of the time it's been much more than that.

Cancelling my vacation was a huge bummer. I was on the West Coast with my family celebrating my mom's 87th birthday, and I hardly saw her. Instead, I was taking conference calls at 3:30 a.m. and driving to Starbucks as soon as it opened so I could spend the whole day using their wifi. (They were very nice about it, though.)

Needless to say, none of this has helped my marathon training.

Also on the employment front, my organization is being impacted by major job offshoring and an in-country geographic move. I'm not worried about my team's jobs being offshored, but there is every chance that we will be asked to move to a flyover state I've visited once on business and in which I have no interest in ever residing. I've been working every angle to keep us all in place but after eighteen years with one employer, I'm facing the very real possibility of either having to move or lose my job.

I've been developing a new career path in hopes of moving to a different part of my company, but it's slow going and will take time. In the meantime, unless I do something horribly wrong or bad that gets me fired immediately (not likely), my job should be safe for about six months. After that, it's anybody's guess. As you might imagine, it's been horribly, horribly stressful. The boyfriend has been A+ supportive, but the whole thing has been really tough to deal with. Aside from the job factor, if I end up feeling I have no choice but to move, it's going to force us to make some decisions about our future that we are really not ready to make just yet.

On a more positive note, the stock market has totally rocked over the last three months, and my bottom line has benefited in a big way: In that time period, my net worth increased by over $82,000. $11,000 of that has been from paycheck money I dumped into IRA and investments, $4200 (I'm rounding) has been from Roth 401(k) contributions, and $4500 has been from deferred matching 401(k) contributions for 2012 from my employer. The remaining $62,000 has been from stock market growth, bringing my net worth excluding real estate to over $817,000.

I know it's not realistic to expect that level of growth to continue for the rest of the year, but as it stands, I have an off chance of hitting a million in investments and cash before the end of December. This is especially gratifying considering that I got spanked pretty hard in taxes after gritting my teeth and converting more than a few years' worth of non-Roth IRA's to Roth, which is a perfectly legal, backdoor way of funding a Roth IRA even if you don't meet the income restrictions.

Anyway, I can't control what happens in the stock market, just as I can't control what happens with the future of my job (although I'm not giving up trying to influence it). I'm trying to just stay the course and keep doing what works for me.

That brings me to the real reason for this post, an update on my 2013 goals.

Save $65,000
I'm behind by $1000 now, up from $200. This is primarily from the nasty tax bite I had in late February, and also because my dental insurance company has been holding up a claim I paid up front due to lost paperwork. It's resolved now, and I'm awaiting payment. I'm not sure if I can make up the deficit, but I'm going to try.

Create a revocable living trust
I finally received the first draft from my lawyer last week, and it needed some revisions. I have the second draft to review this weekend. I also did a pourover will, an advanced health care directive, and a durable power of attorney. Once the trust is finally established, it'll take the rest of the year to move my assets into it.

Save for periodic expenses in advance
Yeah, haven't done a thing on that.

Don't buy any work dresses
I've been buckling down about buying anything in the way of clothes, and that includes work dresses. I did, however, buy a 2013 Boston Marathon jacket because they're so much nicer than usual.

Lose eight pounds in January, and ~~four~~ nine thereafter
I did it. . . I lost seventeen pounds! I'm surviving the Sugar Challenge (no processed sugar) so far too, but I've had a few periods where I almost cracked. My weight is up about four pounds but the absolute worst of the non-location-related work chaos has receded, so I'm taking a break for a few days and then recommitting next week.

Work from home twice weekly
Still doing pretty well on this one, although I've had a few weeks where I've had to be in the office every day. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Working remotely has vastly improved my quality of life, especially when I'm working twelve to fourteen hours a day.

Run three marathons
Boston is two weeks from Monday. It may not be the race I was envisioning, but I'll get through it. I'm starting to feel the burnout, though, so I'm reassessing how realistic it is to hit my bucket list goal of twenty by the end of next year.

How did the first three months of the year treat you?

January goals review

2013-02-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

Yikes. Where did January go? Time to do a progress check on my 2013 goals. Here's how it's all going down so far:

Save $65,000
I'm a little behind on this one, $200 so far. I pulled a little money out of savings to add to my regular investment money in order to max out my traditional IRA, so I did that and then converted it to a Roth the following day. I'm shoring up my savings again, but so far I'm $200 behind.

Why am I behind? Well, I spent money that I didn't need to spend, and I had a great time doing it. My s.o. (let's call him A) and I have thoroughly enjoyed Restaurant Week in New York and went to a few places we've been wanting to try. In addition, I lost weight and bought new clothes, but some will need to be returned (being short and finding jeans that don't drag on the floor, aren't mom jeans, and don't create horrific buttcrack is a real problem!) so I might recoup the $200 before too long.

I should add that the increase in payroll tax has reduced my net income by close to $200, which is slightly offset by the increase in pretax withholding for commuting expenses. I really don't like the idea of reducing my goal to accommodate this change, since I know I have plenty of discretionary spending that I could cut. I'll keep the savings target as it is for now, but perhaps revisit it in a few months.

Create a revocable living trust
I got this rolling, so it's in progress. At the moment, I need my co-op attorney to detail out the building's requirements for the trust, and then my estate attorney will put it together. The co-op attorney is on vacation for another week, so hopefully I'll get the document finalized by the end of February. It'll probably take the rest of the year to move all my assets into it, especially since I need a new proprietary lease issued by the co-op board in the name of the trust.

Save for periodic expenses in advance
Uh. . . . haven't done this yet (see the part about going shopping!). This is where my tax refund will be going, though.

Don't buy any work dresses
Technically I've succeeded on this one so far because I haven't bought any work dresses, but I think that's because the goal itself is too narrow. I missed this month's savings goal because I bought jeans, pants, and workout clothes. . . lots and lots of workout clothes. I might redefine this goal next month to expand it beyond work dresses because even though I'm following the letter of the goal, I'm absolutely finding ways around it.

Lose eight pounds in January, and four thereafter
Revised this goal from twelve pounds to lose to seventeen (sob). It was worse than I thought! That said, I've dropped thirteen pounds so far. I'm sure at least three to five were water weight, so I'm not concerned about how fast I've done it. Four left to go, and I am feeling better in every way.

A new sub-goal to come out of this is the revival of the Sugar Challenge. A little background: I have a serious sugar jones and no ability to exercise any sort of self-control or moderation with it. A few years ago, I went a full year without eating any sweets and almost no processed sugar. After an excruciating six weeks of withdrawl symptoms, I started feeling better and it made a huge difference in my energy level, blood sugar stability, ability to maintain my weight, and overall well-being. After a little over a year, I tried a cookie to see if I'd finally kicked my sugar demon, and it was like the whole prior year had never taken place: I quickly spiraled out of control and couldn't regain it.

For some reason, in the first week of January this year, I managed to go through a few days without processed sugar without any cravings. I decided to try a few more days, and then a few more . . . and now it's been just under a month and I still don't have any cravings. It seems to make sense to keep going, at least for the remainder of the year.

Work from home twice weekly
I'm doing pretty well on this one: I'm holding to two days per week at home, and most nights I'm actually getting to bed by 10 or 10:30. Along with the weight loss, the extra sleep is making me feel much, much better.

Run three marathons
The first one (Boston) comes up in 10 1/2 weeks, and the second is three weeks later. I've put in my first twenty-mile run of the season, and although I still have lingering injury pain (which can last up to two years with this type of injury), I'm running strong and getting faster. I'm taking a speed class once a week, and that's motivating me to really push myself.

All in all, it's not a bad start. How are your goals going?

By the way, I received a request from a longtime reader to remove the captcha feature on comments because it's creating difficulty for her in commenting. I did and immediately got spam-bombed, so I've put it back on. I'll look at alternative commenting systems when I get a chance (I know intensedebate is a popular one), but I appreciate your patience in the meantime!

Did anyone notice this?

2013-01-08T07:36:00.001-05:00

Apparently, the fiscal cliff deal included a provision to allow existing traditional 401(k) accounts to be converted to Roth 401(k)'s. Like the traditional IRA conversion, which allows people who exceed income limits for contributing to a Roth IRA directly to back-door fund Roth IRA's by contributing to traditional IRA plans and then converting them into a Roth IRA, taxes on the traditional IRA are paid up front, and then future growth is tax-free.

You can read the details here. As always, the caveat is that a Roth isn't appropriate for everyone: It makes sense primarily for individuals who expect their retirement incomes to be higher than their working incomes. In addition, the benefits are skewed towards the younger generation in that longer time horizons until the retirement mean more opportunity to take advantage of the power of compounding.

I've put this on the list for things to ask my accountant about at tax time. My employer has offered a Roth 401(k) for several years, and just under 50% of my 401(k) is already in Roth accounts. My traditional 401(k) has close to $200,000 in it and the tax bite will be a big one, certainly five figures. Before doing any kind of a conversion (which isn't available yet anyway), I need to be sure it makes sense. Hopefully the decision will be a lot clearer for other people!

Spice girl

2013-01-06T16:36:00.000-05:00

Living in a small space in New York, I do relatively well at keeping my clutter to a minimum. I have a few ongoing hot spots that need regular maintenance, (front closet; drawers with workout clothes), plus a couple of other spaces that I really don't touch as often as I should. On Friday, I decided to tackle the worst offenders in this last category, one of the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom medicine cabinet.

I knew I had some expired spices in the kitchen cabinet, but I wasn't really prepared for what I found. I had expired spices, all right: ALL of them, aside from two that I know I bought in the last few months. While I don't think expired spices are harmful, they're not going to help me cook the way I want to because the flavors will have degraded. In addition, just the thought of knowingly using expired spices is off-putting. Most really weren't that out of date (I would use anything expired less than six months ago, since the food banks I volunteer at use that as a benchmark for safe consumption), but the worst offender was really, really bad: It was black mustard seeds that I bought while traveling in Europe in . . . 1994.

Yep, 1994.

In my defense, I haven't used the mustard seeds as well in so long that they might as well have not been in there for ten years or more. Same goes for a couple of the other second-worst offenders. There's no point in having them there in any case, though, so I tossed them along with all the rest and recycled the containers.

I've decided that my strategy for spices will be to rely on fresh herbs when it makes sense to do so (i.e., when I can use the entire bunch without throwing them out), and otherwise rebuy dried spices slowly, on an as-needed basis, and in very small quantities, preferably in bulk. I've read mixed information about whether keeping them in the freezer is beneficial or not. I suspect moisture could become a problem, but as long as I keep them tightly closed, I doubt it'll be a major issue. In any case, what I was doing before clearly wasn't a good use of cost or space, so this is an area where I need to make a change if I want to plug a financial leak.

The bathroom cabinet was more distressing. When I have long-term prescriptions, I tend to reorder them as soon as I can, whether I actually need to or not, so that I can have the cost covered through that year's flexible spending account. As my medical needs changed or failed to keep up with the amount of inbound medication, however, expiration became a problem here as well. Expired medication I got rid of on Friday included prescription acne treatment (no longer needed), asthma medication (no longer needed), asthma inhalers (which I do need, but four out of six inhalers expired long ago), and stacks of cream for a bad bacterial skin infection I had quite a few years and doctors ago.

The waste on prescriptions bothers me: I have medical insurance and I'm grateful for that, but my co-pays are high for brand-name medicine, and most of what I described above doesn't have a generic equivalent. Going forward, I can't think of any way around this other than not stockpiling beyond what I need for the next few months, regardless of what's left on my prescription. In the meantime, I'm considering it an expensive lesson learned.

Looking forward, looking back

2013-01-02T17:00:00.003-05:00

Happy new year!

2012 was a year of ups and downs in many different ways. On the positive side, I finally started feeling secure enough about my job to challenge how we do some things in the organization, and the ideas I've been bringing forward are starting to gain momentum at the executive level. I also was able to hire four people for my team, and that's huge. Being able to be a job creator is one of the most satisfying things about my job. We have so much work to do that I'm expecting to be able to hire between one and three more people this calendar year, but it's a balancing act: I'm always mindful that if I tip the balance too far, I'll have to let people go, and that's something I really don't want to do.

Another job-related boost was that after the hurricane, traffic got so bad that I finally announced to my boss that if anyone's looking for me on two particular days of the week, they'll have to look at home because that's where I'm going to be. In reality, it has to be a bit more flexible than that, but working remotely more has improved my quality of life greatly. It's also in keeping with my organization's drive to reduce real estate costs, so I'm hoping to make it a full-time, permanent gig in the next few years.

In the meantime, my relationship hit the twelve-month mark in late summer and is still ticking along really well, and I'm incredibly happy about that. My significant other changed jobs to one with a horrible commute (so he's looking again) but with a ton of additional responsibility and pay. He also finished an Ivy League Master's degree a couple of months ago while working full-time. I met his entire family at a family wedding in the fall, and that really was a wonderful experience as well. It didn't motivate us to hurry things along as far as our own status is concerned. We're in our 40's, we both need a lot of space, and neither of us wants children, so there's no real point to getting married. (As of yesterday, though, we wouldn't get killed in taxes if we did eventually decide to take the plunge.)

On the financial front, I watched the whole fiscal cliff debacle avidly. I'm not looking forward to going through this again in a couple of months when spending comes back around, but I absolutely believe the economy would have tanked today if a compromise agreement hadn't been reached. As for the agreement itself . . . well, you know what they say: Compromise is the art of making sure that nobody's happy. As it is, the major indexes closed 2-3% up today, and I'll take it.

My own personal finances were mixed. My one goal for the year was to hit $65,000 in savings, and I missed that by exactly $2000. I know the main culprit: My mom gave up her townhouse for assisted living, so I'm paying monthly rent in a shared house in my hometown at the rate of $200 per month, or $2400 per year. I totally don't begrudge her this, or the money I spent on six cross country flights last year: She slowed down drastically and lost the last of her vision in the last several months. The more I can do to make this time count, the better. Despite having missed my savings goal, however, my investment returns did really well, especially my 401(k), which was up 18% for the year. As a result, I reached and slightly surpassed my goal of a total net worth of $735,000, not including the value of my home.

I realize that the goal of $735,000 is kind of a chimera: It's a goal that relied on really solid stock market performance, and that's mostly out of my hands. I can only control what I can control, and that's making sure my portfolio is well-diversified and that I max out 401(k) and IRA, and save as much as I can otherwise. I like having high-level goals, though, and I finally feel like my next major financial milestone is in sight: As long as we have decent (not stellar) returns in the stock market in the next couple of years and I keep saving more than half of my net income, my portfolio excluding real estate might actually hit a million by the end of 2014. (It's already there if you count real estate, but I don't include my primary residence as part of my investments. Just a personal preference.)

I said it was a year of ups and downs, and there certainly were a few less than bright moments. As I mentioned above, my mom is really slowing down. She's 86 now and has a very strong interest in life and will to live, but she's lost most of her mobility, along with her sight. I've never seen her tire as easily as I have in the last two weeks. Several of my friends lost parents who were much younger than my mom this year, and that makes me all the more keenly aware that anything could happen at any time.

Another not-so-wonderful experience this year has been one of the more serious running injuries I've had. I did a solid marathon in May after a miserable experience in 89 degree weather in Boston, but I ended up doing my third marathon in 2012 as a combination of walking and slow running after tearing some abdominal muscles (don't ask; it was a gym injury) and creating a series of microfractures in one of the important bones in that general neighborhood. The injury was diagnosed in July and I'm still dealing with it today. I'm doing less running and more spinning and weightlifting, but without question I've gained weight and I'm not happy about it. I have three marathons on deck for this year, and I'd really like to run them decently.

Hurricane Sandy didn't really impact me directly other than losing transportation for a few days, but I can't write about lowlights for the year without mentioning it. Many of my friends and colleagues went through an awful time, and there are still plenty of people suffering. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this is the new normal for this part of the country.

Finally, this is really not horrible, but rather so-so: Like everyone else in the work force, I'm officially paying 2% more of my salary to payroll taxes for Social Security, which completely nullifies this year's pay raise. I actually don't think funding Social Security is a bad thing, though, given that I have a rather vested interest in seeing the program remain solvent. Since that's the only tax hike I'm facing following the fiscal cliff negotiations, I'm actually fairly okay with it.

Since I think I do better with formal goals articulated, I put together a mini-list for 2013. Here's what I'm aiming for this calendar year:

Save $65,000
Between losing my pay raise to taxes and paying rent in a place I don't actually live, it's going to be a stretch but I think it's a worthwhile challenge. I have the advantage of being able to cash out 100,000 air miles this year, so I'm not going to be spending as much on cross-country trips this year as I did last year. This goal also includes maxing out 401(k) and IRA at the higher 2013 limits and doing an IRA conversion to a Roth as soon as I make the deductible IRA investment.

Create a revocable living trust
This is a huge area I've neglected in my financial planning, on the grounds that I don't have any dependents. I have enough saved up that it makes sense to structure my (eventual) estate so as to avoid probate, though, so I signed up for my corporate legal program so I can access estate planning services without paying through the nose for them.

Save for periodic expenses in advance
Like everyone else, I have expenses that hit only in certain months (charitable contributions, homeowner's insurance, and so forth). I usually end up shorting my investments for that particular month to cover the expenses, even though they are perfectly easy to anticipate and plan for in advance. For 2013, I documented all of the expenses I can think of that hit only once or twice per year, along with the expected cost. Since I now have a clearer idea of what to expect and when, I'm going to divert any money I can squeeze out of my not-so-formal budget each month to savings so that I can build up a reserve fund to cover these periodic expenses, while maintaining effective dollar cost averaging for investments.

Don't buy any work dresses
It's a weaknesss. I have plenty; I don't need more. I just need to fit into the ones I have a little more acceptably.

Lose eight pounds in January, and four thereafter
I should add that I'm a little scared to weigh myself, but I will tomorrow. This goal sets a progress rate of about two pounds per week through January, which should be achievable through activity, sensible eating, and using a tracker to capture calories in and out with a daily baseline of 1500. A few mini-goals that devolve from this one include not buying ice cream at home since it's a major trigger food for overeating; limiting alcoholic drinks to two per night, two nights per week; and limiting sweets to once per week, with a conscious effort to avoid junk sweets and save the calories for the good stuff.

Work from home twice weekly
This is a work-life balance issue. It's harder than it sounds, but I really want to stick to this schedule. I'm more productive, I save money on transportation even though I spend more on electricity, and I just feel better having a reprieve from a really awful commute. I'll continue working remotely for a week at a time while I'm visiting my mom, but I start my workday at 3:45 a.m. local time when I do that, and that's harder on me than the daily commute here in New York. A mini-goal that devolves from this one is to get to bed by 10:00 p.m. (10:30 p.m. latest) the nights before I work in the office, since I have to get up before 5:00 a.m. those days.

Run three marathons
I'd like them to be good ones, so I'm really trying to put this injury behind me.

You'll notice the absence of a blogging goal. I'm feeling the itch to write more, so it may be that I end up posting more this year than I have in the last couple of years. No promises, though.

Here's hoping that everyone had a tranquil end to 2012, and that 2013 brings joy and happiness to all.

Yay! I'm underinsured

2012-11-16T10:34:00.002-05:00

Ahem. . . I finally have some stuff to talk about.

I bought my homeowner's co-op policy right after I closed on my co-op eleven years ago. At the time, I did a cursory comparison shop and then grabbed the cheapest standard co-op policy I could find, just so I could move in knowing that I had coverage. Going back and reviewing my policy has been on my to-do list for a long time, but it always seems like I'm too swamped to do it properly when renewal time comes around. As a result, I always end up renewing the standard policy and pushing the review to next year's to-do list.

A year and a half ago, the sensor on my washing machine that tells the machine to stop filling conked out while I was running a load. The washer was quiet, so I didn't realize that anything was awry until my neighbor's dog ran into my bedroom and came back soaking wet.

There was a hell of a mess to clean up, but I was extraordinarily lucky that my floors weren't ruined. While I was in the middle of the cleanup, though, I found out that the water was also pouring into the elevator shaft and running over the control panel. The super took a break from fighting the water to tell me that any lasting repercussions, up to and including an elevator replacement, would be on my dime.

THAT was almost enough to make my heart stop.

Thankfully, the control panel dried out without any damage. Again, I was extraordinarily lucky.

You would think that would be enough to motivate me to review my policy and adjust it as necessary, BUT NO. I just carried on without doing anything.

Fast forward to October last year.

I came home after an evening out to a street full of sirens, flashing lights, firetrucks, and neighbors running out of the building in bare feet. It turned out that my neighbors a few doors down the hall had experienced an electrical fire caused by a plugged-in appliance while no one was home. I actually got a photo of a huge backdraft shooting out of a window after a couple of firemen kicked it in.

As you might expect, my neighbors' apartment was completely gutted and uninhabitable. The building lobby was destroyed by both fire and water, and the damage ended less than five feet from my door. My apartment stunk for a couple of weeks, but there was no lasting damage. Once again, I was extraordinarily lucky.

For the next eight months, walking through the lobby looked like walking through first a war zone, and then a major construction site. The neighbors had their apartment rebuilt at the same time and only recently moved back in.

You would think that would be enough to motivate me to review my policy and adjust it as necessary, BUT NO. I just carried on without doing anything.

That's horribly irresponsible, right? I'm not normally like that (if anything, I'm a little overly conscientious about anything that impacts my bottom line or risk factors that could affect it) but for some reason I just didn't want to sit down and go over my homeowner's insurance. The long-lasting impact of the fire and the horrific renovation costs both within the apartment where the fire started and in the lobby have stayed with me, though. This year, when my renewal came through, I sat down to review my policy thoroughly. A few of the numbers I saw scared me:

Building property protection: Covered up to $4,700
Wow. I am seriously underinsured here. That's not going to cover a lot of damage if I have a fire!

Personal property protection: Covered up to $47,000
I don't have a lot of valuables, so that's actually more than I need. As it turns out, though, dropping coverage below $45,500 in this area will convert my policy from replacement value to actual cash value across the board. In other words, if something bad happens, everything that's covered by this policy will only be covered at the 2001 value because that's when I bought my apartment. That's not smart, so I'm leaving this one as is.

Additional living expenses: Up to 12 months
No change needed here.

Family liability protection: $300,000 each occurrence
My building wants $1,000,000 coverage, so I'm short here as well.

Guest medical protection: $1000 each person
It's low, but I don't have a lot of risk factors. I'm okay with this.

Loss Assessments: $1000 each occurrence
I didn't even know what this is. It covers individual shareholder assessments, which are temporary costs assessed by the building above and beyond standard maintenance costs. My building is quite good about avoiding assessments, so I think it's fine to leave this one as is.

I called my insurer to run through a few scenarios and found out that upping my building property protection to $150,000 and my liability to $1,000,000 will nearly double my base costs. I already have the highest deductible available ($1000) and all applicable discounts from having a doorman and smoke/carbon monoxide detectors, so there's no way to bring that number down any further. I also called around to other insurers to see if anyone else would be more competitive. To my surprise, my current insurer offered the most competitive rates across the board, even compared to policies in which I could bring my deductible up to $5,000 or $10,000.

I called my insurer back and made the applicable changes, effective on the date of my policy renewal. I'm screwed if a fire breaks out between now and mid-December, but after that I'll be sleeping a lot better.

Do you have renter's or homeowner's insurance? If not, why not? If so, do you feel that you're adequately covered, or do you plan to make changes on your next renewal?

YOLO! (sort of)

2012-07-18T14:35:00.001-05:00

I can't believe that more than half of the year is over already. Summer is half over as well, and like usual, I worry that I'm not taking enough advantage of it. It's hot and disgusting, but I'm dreading shorter days, cold winds, and above all, snow.

I've had a very decent first half of the financial year. My calendar year 2012 savings and investment goal is $65,000, and I'm $900 short of being halfway there. (I'm not counting the $6000 gift repayment windfall towards meeting this goal, but I invested the whole thing as soon as I cashed the check.) Thanks to cashing in accumulated cash-back credit card rewards, I'll be able to close the $900 gap by $500 this month. My FICA taxes are paid up for the year by mid-October, so barring losing my job or something big and expensive happening between now and the end of the year, I'm on track to hit $65,000 by the end of December, with one caveat: I have to maintain focus and not start slacking off!

In case it's hard to tell, I'm on fire with savings and investing again. One new variable this year that's making me work a little harder at it is the fact that since my mom gave up her independent living townhouse in January, I now have to pay rent on a place in my hometown. I lucked into a really outstanding arrangement that's only costing me two hundred dollars per month, but between that and higher gas prices coupled with frequent travel to see her, it's a lot more money out the door for family stuff than I was spending a couple of years ago. I don't mind at all, but it means I have to be more creative and stretch a little harder to hit an aggressive savings target.

Another cost center is my better half. We've taken a couple of short trips this year, and we have a long weekend away coming up. We also go out for dinner at least a couple of times per week, although we have started cooking together from time to time on the weekends. (I can't get him to eat in when it's like a furnace outside, though!)

Being black-belt frugal with a husband who decidedly was not of the same mindset didn't kill my marriage, but it certainly hurt it. One year into this relationship, my significant other and I are serious. We're not talking marriage, but I think we're in it for at least a reasonably long haul, and in fact more and more I'm starting to believe that I've found the love of my life. On that basis, I've decided that spending a little more money than I would do if left to my own devices is an investment in the relationship, and that investment is well worth it to me. I also keep reminding myself that it's not all about living for tomorrow. My parents gave me a GREAT start by paying for my undergraduate education, but I sacrificed a heck of a lot in my 20's and 30's to put myself on a solid financial footing. Now that I'm hitting midlife, I want better balance. To that end, as long as I'm debt-free, employed, and planning well for the future I want, having fun today counts for a lot.

Another reason for wanting more balance in my life is that I see my mom's life gradually drawing to a close. She's doing significantly better than she was a few months ago, but the aggregate changes in her health over the last twelve months have been immense and very much for the worse. My gut feeling is that while she is stable now, that can and very probably will change in an instant sometime down the road. I don't think she has a whole lot of time left, so I am not going to put off any opportunity to give her enjoyment today. (YOLO, Mom, YOLO!!!)

I realize that everything I just wrote about where my spending has increased sounds like it doesn't map one iota to saying I'm doing well on aggressive savings, but it correlates better than it appears. Prioritizing my spending the way I have has actually helped me keep on track with my savings goal because spending mindfully on the things that are important to me (my mom, my relationship and our travel, plus the occasional manicure!) makes it a whole lot easier not to blow money on things that don't matter.

How did you do on your financial game plan over the first half of the year?

An excellent kind of closure

2012-05-30T21:18:00.000-05:00

Remember about a year ago, when I lent (gave) my New York mom and dad $6000?

Today, they paid me back in full. The check came in a card that just said "We love you."

I don't care about the money; I never expected to see it again anyway. I know what changed to make it possible for them to repay me, though. I hope it will keep them solvent for the rest of their lives.

Fake millionaire

2012-03-14T07:07:00.001-05:00

[Blowing off cobwebs]

Hi there, internets. How's it going?

This is the first time I've visited this blog since, well, since whenever I last posted. Haven't checked the email account, haven't done squat. Instead of writing about my financial life, I've been off living it, and that's been pretty groovy.

A few things have changed since I last posted. Here's a brief roundup:

--I fell in love, big, big love. It wasn't with the Australian guy I started seeing last May: He's very charming and we had unbelievable chemistry together, but among other things, he turned out to be completely crackers. After a few months that started out great and then got very, very bad, I pulled the plug. We tried to evolve into friends a little while after that because we missed each other (remember, chemistry), but he just can't function without generating drama. In the end he began interfering in my new budding relationship, so I cut him off entirely.

I met someone else in August, an American this time. We had a shaky start, but somehow it caught fire and now I can't imagine life without him. There are so many things I could say about him, including the facts that he's six feet tall and very handsome, but the most compelling for me are that he's a good man and a grounded one, with a heart the size of Texas. We've cautiously started circling around the idea of moving in together once his lease is up in November. November's a long way off, but right now shacking up is on the table as one of a number of different options to consider as the time draws closer. I think he's thought a bit beyond living together, but I'm not really ready for that conversation yet and I don't think he is, either. There's no rush, anyway: We're in our forties and neither of us has or wants kids, so there's no reason to make life-altering decisions prematurely. In the meantime, the relationship continues to grow at a pace and in a direction that feels like home for both of us.

--My mom's health took a dump. She is now nearly blind, in a wheelchair, and showing the onset of dementia, and all of it was triggered by a series of infections. Some days are good and some are bad, but I'm so thankful that she has onsite 24-7 assisted living in her retirement community: She will never live independently again. I wasn't actually sure she would make it to her 86th birthday, but she did and has been doing incrementally better since then. She gave up her townhouse (ever moved a lifetime of stuff in six days? I have), which makes visiting as often as I do both expensive and logistically complicated.

--Knocked off another marathon, for ten total. I have three lined up for this year and I'd like to do a couple more after that, but my body's starting to tell me that I need to make some changes. I've been rehabbing a couple of chronic injuries in physical therapy for months now, and I'm going to have to find a way to manage them because they're not really going to heal.

--My job became my angry job on steroids. It's harder than heck because of all the politics and I'm putting in huge hours, but it's good in a way: Somewhere in the dysfunctional shards of what was once a pretty good organization until it was restructured into god-knows-what a few years ago, I've finally found my niche. I'm in a two-year sweet spot where my pension grows at an unusually fast pace, so I'm determined to stick it out for a while yet. Thirteen more years will give me a decent income from age 60 onwards, and it's harder and harder to contemplate walking away from that.

--I spent a whole lot of money last year. After a tough couple of years at work and with my mom's horrible stroke in 2010, I thought a little more engagement with the present took precedence over the future planning I was doing, at least for a while. It was fun. I'm pulling it back into balance in 2012 because I feel like I'm out of whack on the wrong side of the save-spend equation, and that's not a comfortable place for me.

--Goal setting. I should get back to that sometime. My one concrete goal for 2012 is to save $65,000 and invest $70,000.

--Other than one or two I pop in on periodically, I don't follow blogs anymore. The landscape has changed: I think a lot of people who started around the same time I did have dropped by the wayside, and that's okay. I haven't looked for new blogs to follow; it's just not a priority.

--Last but not least, and thanks to a strong stock market recovery in the first two months of the year, I reached one of my major financial milestones today: Once the sum total of my cash savings and investment portfolio hit $650,000, I became a Fake Millionaire. I call it that because once the approximate value of my apartment after transfer fees and flip tax are deducted is factored in (my conservative estimate is that I'd clear about $350,000), my net worth is a million. The reason why I think it's a false construct is that although I know a lot of people count the value of their primary home as part of their net worth, I don't. To me, it's a place to live and I'm always going to have to live somewhere, so I don't think of my home as an asset that I'll ultimately cash out.

Nevertheless, the idea of being worth a cool million is pretty neat.

I'm arriving at this goal a few months later than I had hoped, but after the economic bloodbath of the last couple of years, I'm glad I stayed fully invested in the stock market even if I didn't add to my investments as much as I should have last year.

My next financial goal is to hit a million in investments and savings alone, and I'd like to get there before I turn 46. I'm 43 now, so I won't hit my deadline without some pretty aggressive saving as well as continued positive performance in the stock market. I've engaged financial advisory services through one of my investment companies in hopes of getting some guidance on simplifying and streamlining what I have, and I have a second meeting with my assigned advisor next week. Should be good fun.

As far as blogging goes, I'll stop in here from time to time as I feel like it, but the spark I had before is gone. One day, you might find that the blog is suddenly gone as well. Part of it is that every day I feel a little more robbed of my privacy, and that bothers me. My first and last name together are a little uncommon, so it's easy to search on my full name and get meaningful results. I've received a couple of unwelcome contacts thanks to busybodies from the past digging through search engines, so I've had every identifiable listing I could get my hands on removed. (Those online "directories" are a disgrace: Public information or not, no one has any business aggregating personal data and spreading it out like a buffet table for any old crazypants stalker to find.)

Largely thanks to social media and online shopping, data mining is faster, more accurate, and a lot sneakier than it was just a year or two ago. I realize that privacy as a concept is outdated, but I have a hard time letting it go and embracing a world where no one has a filter and everyone knows everything about everyone. Knowing that I can't keep my identity from being outed makes me a lot less willing to write openly online about my life, and about my finances in particular.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't use social media or shop online. It's fun. To the limited extent that I do it, I really enjoy it. If you choose to use it, though, never forget this: Once information about you reaches the internet, you can't pull it back. In addition, if you use social media, always be mindful that you are what's for sale.

I don't want to end on a somber note. My mom is stable for now, and although it's been a tough transition for all of us, she's living in a place where she gets the ongoing care she needs. My sibling and I still have a contentious relationship, but for now we're mostly in a state of detente. I've taken a step back on a couple of friendships, but others have deepened. Life is rich and rewarding, and I'm deeply in love.

As always, I'm bullish on the future.

Oops, guess I should put a title in

2011-07-07T11:30:00.003-05:00

Yikes. It's July. How's your summer going so far? I've had some ups and downs over the past six weeks or thereabouts. In no particular order, here they are:

Family
I came out West for a planned working visit a few days ago. The day after I arrived, my mom's ability to function took a dramatic turn for the worse. She has Parkinson's and recently shifted from cane to walker, but overnight she suddenly became completely unable to walk or stand on her own. Sibling and I took her to the emergency room once it became clear that this wasn't going away, and we were glad to find out that there were no signs of another stroke. Mom did have a bad bladder infection, though, and unless the neurologist turns up something else today when he examines her, there's a strong probability that the bladder infection is the root cause of Mom's overnight loss of function. She's been doing better since going on antibiotics, and she reluctantly agreed to move to assisted living on what is hopefully a temporary basis. In the meantime, I'm working from 4:00 a.m. until early afternoon, spending the rest of the day with her, and then catching up in the evening. My sibling will be able to stay her longer due to a planned extended vacation/leave of absence from work, so I'll most likely be returning to New York this weekend even though Mom's not likely to be released from assisted living for some time.

Job
And why is it so important for me to get back to New York? We're going through another reorg at work, so I need to be visible even though there are no plans for layoffs in the works as far as I can tell. After nearly two years of constant reorganization, however, I'm pretty burned out and ready to accept whatever happens.

Relationship
A couple of months in, things are pretty good with the Aussie so far. We survived the first idiotic fight, and we're learning to catch cultural things that impede communication fairly quickly. One potential issue I see looming on the horizon is that we are very, very different when it comes to money. I'm not sure I'd call it a red flag at the moment, but its something to keep in mind if things start heading in a more serious direction. To put it succinctly, he makes a lot, but he also spends a lot. You know that's really not how I roll.

The more immediate challenge is that he's has had a steady stream of family visiting over the past few weeks, and although I've been invited to lots of things with them, the limited time to talk and spend time one on one has made things a little harder. I started feeling a rift that probably isn't actually there, and I think it's both because of the lack of time together and because while he's swamped with family obligations, my mom's problems are taking a heavy toll on me and affecting how I'm perceiving everything at the moment. We'll see what getting back to normal living brings.

Health
Ran the Boston Marathon in April; I requalified for 2012, but wasn't happy with my time. I signed up for a second marathon only six weeks later, and in that one I ran a personal best of just over 3:30. I promptly got sick with a respiratory infection right before an out of state relay in June, which made that run all kinds of interesting. I'm over it, but still coughing (thanks, asthma!). I also gained a few pounds, and the knee problem that has been hanging around for the past year and a half has become much more acute. I'm supposedly doing a marathon in early October, but my mileage and fitness level have both dropped precipitously. I'm still planning on doing it but not expecting any miracles, especially with knee problems, lack of training, and the fact that this will be my fourth marathon in twelve months.

Money
Haven't been saving as much as usual. Part of that is because of the unexpected expenses I wrote about in my last post (a $6000 "loan" [really a gift] to my New York parents and well over $2000 on a new washer and dryer), but I've also been traveling a lot (six trips since January, five of which involved airline tickets). Spending time with the Aussie has also meant much more eating out than I'm used to, but he's one of those guys who strongly prefers to pick up the check. There is a very big difference in our incomes, but it's still very hard for me to let someone else pay all the time when we go out. I do grab the check on occasion (never in front of his friends), but I can tell that he's not particularly thrilled about it. In any case, while going out for dinner frequently has been decidedly bad for my waistline, it hasn't had a lot of impact on my bottom line. Travel and the unexpected expenses I described are by far the primary culprits.

That sounds a lot more Debbie Downer-ish than I meant it to. I'm actually fairly optimistic that my mom will recover enough to be able to resume independent living, though I don't think it'll happen as soon as she expects it to. As for the rest of it, the big picture is that I don't have a lot worth expending energy worrying on, so I'm doing my best to focus on the important things and let go of the rest.

What's going on with you right now?

Well, hi there

2011-05-25T18:07:00.003-05:00

It's been a while, so I thought I'd drop in again and give you the highlights about some things that have happened recently.

First, I took two reasonably significant financial hits. Remember my New York Mom and New York Dad? They're an older couple I rented a room from as a grad student, and I secretly bailed New York Mom out some years ago with a few hundred dollars when she overspent. (This couple has never been able to manage money.) New York Mom also had a major, major health crisis and nearly died a couple of years ago, so I pitched in with a lot of logistical and emotional support during that time.

Well, I got a call from New York Mom and New York Dad a number of weeks ago. They asked if they could borrow some money because of a cash flow problem. They inherited an apartment from a friend they cared for when she was ill for a number of years, and it's been on the market without selling for quite some time. They never changed the way they spend, and I think they also made some sort-of investment decisions with property in Florida that are inappropriate for how they live and how much money they have. They hit the wall and ran out of cash, and from what it sounds like, they were about to lose property as a result.

I asked how much they needed, and New York Dad said "Ten thousand. . . maybe twelve thousand?"

In other words, they had no idea what they need.

I needed 24 hours to think about this and talk it over with my sibling, who is really good in these situations. In the end, I decided the following:

1. I offered $6000.
2. It's a gift, not a loan.
3. This is a one-time deal and it never happens again.

They accepted and insist that they'll pay me back, but I know it won't happen. I'm actually fine with it; the only thing I find slightly galling is knowing that some of it will go to support their slackass daughter (Grifter), who still has no real interest in getting a job even though she's getting divorced, since it's a lot more fun to be a mommy.

(By the way, what does it say that this nice couple came to me for money and not their own two adult children??)

I know I'll probably be pilloried for doing this, but there have been times in my life when people have helped me out, i.e. my parents giving me the boost I needed to pass my co-op board financials when I bought my apartment. I have enough to help them, and my gut is telling me it's the right thing to do. We'll see if that's how it really plays out.

The other financial hit I took is that my washing machine finally died, and in a most dramatic fashion: It flooded my bedroom as well as the basement. I was extraordinarily lucky that there was no permanent damage to the electrical panels in the elevators, as that would have been my responsibility to fix. I stayed up late researching compact washers and dryers (since the dryer is 27 years old), and the next morning I sailed out to a store in the neighborhood and bought Bosch replacements. There's not a huge market for compact units and these have the best consumer reviews, much better than the Maytag, LG, and Whirlpool equivalents I looked at. The two machines plus taxes, installation, new outlet (Bosch hates US outlets), unexpected extra costs based on the old dryer not being up to code (!), and removal of the old units came to $2360. Ouch.

I tapped my emergency fund for both of these major expenses, so there was no question of either racking up debt or liquidating investments. It means I've had to divert new money into rebuilding my emergency fund, but the fact that I had the money is peace of mind like no other.

And finally, the third major event: I met someone. For some reason, I have (ok, the right word is probably had) a lot of readers from Australia; I hope you folks in particular will be pleased to hear that he's Australian. He came here a few months ago on an expat assignment with a one-year visa that's renewable indefinitely. It's early days yet, but so far it's been fantastic. That's about all I want to say about him for now, but the spark is definitely there, and it's there in a really big way.

If anyone's still reading, I hope all is well and that your own personal economic recovery has legs. Back again when there's something else to report.

Here but also sort of gone

2011-04-03T13:09:00.003-05:00

Hi. How have you been?

Looks like I haven't posted since 16 January. I don't really have an explanation for that other than that I just ran completely out of steam.

The time away has been nice. Sorry, but it has.

In no particular order, here's some of what I've done over the last eleven weeks of radio silence:

--Turned 42
--Broke a rib
--Made a really good new friend
--Deepened a couple of other budding friendships
--Visited my mom out West
--Signed up for a 200-mile relay in Utah this summer
--Saw live music
--Went to a lot of neat places I've never been, including an absinthe bar
--Started going out with friends much, much more
--Maintained my lower weight/smaller size
--Learned to bake the very challenging French macarons
--Continued shopping unrepentantly for smaller clothes (I spent a crapload of money on things that look great and fit beautifully, and I don't regret it one bit.)
--Bought a load of moderately priced and very beautiful craft jewelry from independent artists
--Finished heavy training for the Boston Marathon
--Worked up to 100 push-ups a day, split into two sets of fifty
--Started dating online (and oh my, is THAT ever a freak show at my age!)
--Got my job reclassified as a much bigger position with more responsibility (no extra money, though)
--Arrived within striking distance of my unofficial end of 2011 net worth goal

Things I did not do over the past eleven weeks:

--Blog
--Check email for this account
--Read any blogs other than two or three I've followed for a long time
--Set any goals whatsoever other than maintaining my weight loss and saving $65,000 this year

My unofficial end of 2011 net worth goal is unofficial because it depends less on my own diligence in savings than it does on a robust stock market. Thanks to the market recovery, however, I'm close to hitting a major milestone early: Savings and investments plus the estimated value of my home add up to just shy of a million dollars.

Some people count equity as part of net worth, and some don't. I don't, so I don't count myself as someone approaching millionairedom. If all goes well, that'll happen in the next several years. For now, though, my perspective is that things aren't as hard as they used to be.

I don't know when or if I'll feel like coming back to the way this blog was before, but I'll check in from time to time. When I hit a milestone, I'll definitely post it. For now, however, I've got an avalanche of work coming down on me, a very full social calendar, and a marathon in two weeks.

Anything neat going on in your life that you want to share?

Food for thought

2011-01-16T15:37:00.007-05:00

After I posted my weight loss photos, a commenter asked me to write a post about what I eat. The answer is pretty simple and probably pretty boring: Mostly whole foods that I cook myself. I've found through trial and error and error and error over the years that I'm very sensitive to sugar and other simple carbs, and that they cause my blood sugar to whipsaw all over the place. I simply function better on a moderately low-carb eating plan.

There's a little more background to my eating habits that I should explain. Because my mom experienced dangerously high cholesterol in the late 1980's, my entire family adopted what was then called the New American Diet plan and eliminated egg yolks, oils and fats, and any kind of meat other than poultry and fish (and I rarely eat fish myself). In grad school, I was too broke to afford chicken or turkey on a regular basis, so I started following Dean Ornish's vegetarian plan. This turned out to be a mistake, as I was hungry all the time and became severely anemic. After a year and a half of mostly miserable struggling and weight fluctuation, I went back, more or less, to the still carb-rich New American Diet plan.

You know, that one just never worked for me that well, either. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who function great on high carb intake, but I'm not one of them.

After coming to the conclusion a few years ago that I feel better with more protein and fat in my diet, I relaxed my categories of food intake considerably. I like eggs, nuts, and avocados, so I eat them in moderation. (Unlike the Dean Ornish days, there's medical evidence to suggest that the heart-healthy benefits of these kinds of fats overwhelmingly outweigh any dangers.) I like lean ham and the occasional slice of bacon, although I only cook the turkey kind. I've never cooked red meat, but I'll eat it at someone's house. Similarly, although I only ever ate whole grain bread, I've cut my bread intake way down. I used to bake bread every week and I love the taste of it, but I have a good friend who convinced me that I have an undiagnosed food allergy to something in it, because more than a couple of slices per day makes me puffy all over for several days. Since cutting way back on bread, I can't deny that I'm much less puffy all the time.

My real food bugaboo, however, is sweets. I gave up sweets for a full year in 2009, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The first time I had refined sugar after that, it was like I had never stopped. I've found, however, that the cravings are manageable with a higher protein intake (and if I don't indulge, they drop to non-existent within a day or two) unless I have PMS. PMS results in much worse sugar cravings and usually one to two bad days of indulgence, so the only answer for that is to make it as difficult as possible to give into them by not keeping any sweets at home.

So, back to what I eat. Here's a typical day for me:

Breakfast: 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oatmeal (which *can* be cooked in the microwave) with either 1 cup of blueberries or 1/2 cup of pomegranate seeds

Snack: One hard-boiled egg with salt

Snack: One peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread, using one tablespoon of peanut butter. (This is my entire bread consumption for the day.)

Lunch: Four to five ounces of grilled chicken (or ham, or one chicken sausage, or several small turkey meatballs - whatever adds up to about 200 calories), with raw carrot sticks and raw red, green, orange, or yellow bell pepper - preferably a mix since the colors are so appealing

Snack: One large apple, or three clementines, or one banana, or one other similarly-sized portion of in-season fruit

Snack: 1/4 cup of almonds, pecans, walnuts, or mixed nuts. (I try to skip this one, but I always have it with me at work in case I need it.)

Dinner: It varies, but usually something like spicy vegetarian or chicken chili, pot pie, whole wheat pasta with green vegetables and sauce, turkey burgers and vegetables, turkey meat loaf and vegetables, or something else that I've cooked and frozen in advance so I can just grab it out of the freezer the morning I need it.

When I was losing weight, I stuck to 1500-1700 calories per day, bumping it up to 2500 once every week and a half to two weeks to accommodate dinners out with friends, bad PMS days, or days when I was just absolutely starving for no apparent reason. I also worked out a LOT, primarily running and weightlifting (thank you to the commenter who mentioned my arms, by the way. I was so gratified to see my guns come back so quickly!), with a little yoga thrown in when I had time.

Since then, nothing has changed other than the fact that I'm eating around 2000 to 2400 calories most days. Some days I go overboard, especially since I've been eating more sweets than I should over the past couple of weeks. (More on that in my next post.) When that happens, I usually pull back the next day to balance out my intake. My weight has been hovering between 138 and 142 but I'm spending more time at 142 than I'd like, so I'm actually going back to lower calories for the next couple of weeks to bring my average down to my original target, 140.

That's my food life. There are some other things I did to lose weight that made a major impact on my progress, and those are worth sharing as well. They were:

Stop hitting the candy bowls at work
There are many of them, and they are always full. When I start indulging, I can't stop. One of my best friends at work is a guy who perennially has ten pounds to lose, so we made a deal: No candy at work for either of us, and we each get to keep the other person honest. Believe it or not, it worked and is continuing to work.

Stop hitting the vending machine at work
I got into the habit of grabbing a 3:00 snack when I got tired, and it was always something nasty like chips or a candy bar. Like the candy bowl situation, I had to go cold turkey. I started bringing a hard-boiled egg to work every day and eating it relatively early, and my blood sugar and energy levels are much more stable now than they were before I started doing that.

Bring lunch to work every day
I've done this my whole adult life anyway. It's something I started because eating out is expensive and not that healthy relative to what I can make myself, so this was no hardship. Bringing breakfast and lunch from home and cooking dinner at home most of the time are healthy (the way I do it, anyway) and save a ton of money, both of which are so very good for my frugal heart.

Plan
I plan my food intake (including calories) in a spreadsheet one day in advance. Sometimes I need to make adjustments, but seeing the big picture helps me know where I have room to modify. Doing this even though I'm not officially losing weight anymore helps keep me on track.

Weigh in daily
I weigh myself every day, and I graph the results. It's a crazy-ass line, sometimes shooting up or down four pounds in a day. Seeing the fluctuations helps me not get discouraged because I know it'll change a day or two later. Several days of sustained increase also serve as an early-warning system, telling me that I need to pull back for a few days or risk gaining again.

It was hard to acknowledge that exercise alone wasn't enough to keep my weight where it should be, but for me weight maintenance falls into the realm of Failing to plan is planning to fail. I'm really enjoying looking and feeling better all the time, and it's not something I want to let go south again. Just for fun, here's a shot of where I am today, featuring really awful hair and a dress I bought on clearance for $34 to wear at an upcoming formal event:

What tips and techniques do you rely on to manage your weight?

Update

2011-01-09T21:47:00.002-05:00

You know that January goals post I usually put together? Haven't done it yet. Still thinking about what I really want my goals to be as opposed to what I feel they should be. I think that's part of why they fell apart last year, aside from the major unexpected events that happened.

In other news, we have a stopgap solution of sorts cobbled together for my mom. Thank you so very, very much to everyone who responded with suggestions and concern. While I was out West, we got a booster for the toilet seat and had platforms built to go under the sofa and recliner so that my mom can get up more easily. I was so embarrassed: The workmen who custom-built the platforms refused to accept a cent of payment for either labor or materials. All we could do was send a thank-you card to their place of employment, and we did that right away.

We also worked very hard on the other piece of the puzzle, buy-in from my mom on making changes to help maintain independence. To that end, we got her to use a walker inside the house (which is a townhouse in a retirement community) instead of a cane when she's unsteady. She was in the habit of asking my sibling and I for an arm when her balance was off because she hated the walker, but we decided that instead of lending her an arm, we would bring her the walker instead. She didn't like that at first, but after realizing how much easier it is to get around, especially when she's alone, she got on board with the idea. She still won't use the walker outside the house, which is when she needs it the most, but we're working on it.

Similarly, we got my mom to wear the support stockings she's supposed to be wearing to keep her ankles from swelling, and the improvement was drastic. She doesn't like them, but she grudgingly acknowledges that they make a huge difference in lessening her ankle swelling, so she's putting them on most days even though it's a struggle. We also got her in the habit of putting her feet up in the recliner, although I'm not sure whether she's still doing that consistently or not.

Finally, my mom is supposed to be doing strengthening exercises for mobility, and she hadn't been doing them for quite a while. We got her in the habit of doing them while we were there by doing them with her, and now we follow up with her daily to make sure she still does them. She hates them because she feels they're too elementary, but they are appropriate given her age and physical condition.

Things we haven't succeeded in getting my mom to adopt thus far include Kegel exercises for bladder strengthening (she has no interest in these at all, despite her bladder weakness - which she's determined to ignore altogether at the moment), and an alert necklace in case she needs assistance and can't get to the phone. Since my mom had a couple of weeks of not having to use the phone to call either me or my sibling, she's suddenly having much more difficulty using it. As a result, we're hoping to get her to bend on the necklace next weekend.

It's not a great situation, but it's better - for now. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping nothing bad happens.

Going back to the goals part for just a second: Any suggestions from you on what goals I should have for 2011? I have a few in mind, but I'd like to hear what you think I should aim for. Thanks a bunch in advance.

So long, 2010

2011-01-01T22:18:00.005-05:00

2010 wasn't the greatest of years by a long shot, but it wasn't the worst it could have been, either. Since my goals for 2010 stopped being relevant a long time ago, I'll just do a quick summary of the major events that made up my 2010 story:

Highlights
Saving
The one goal from 2010 that remained relevant all the way through was my savings goal of $63,000 in total. I managed to exceed this one, finishing out the year at $67,000. This includes my 401(k) and IRA contributions, as well as taxable investing. I probably could have come close to $70,000 had I not done some major crazypants, self-indulgent personal spending in November and December, but I'm really pleased to have beaten my target.

Net worth
Thanks to nearly 20% return in most of my investments this year, I achieved my secret net worth target of half a million dollars excluding real estate in November. A buoyant last six weeks in the stock market added just shy of of $25,000 to that figure, which is a great way to start my 2011 financial goals. I also felt confident enough to up my charitable giving and move some of my three years of cash reserves into bond funds. I still have fourteen months' worth of expenses stashed away in cash just in case, though.

Fitness
I gained twelve pounds relatively early in the year, but I managed to lose it by the end of December. I know I'm up a little bit at the moment after overindulging this past week, so it's time to get back on the wagon and stay there.

Work
I still have a job, and after foregoing raises due to the economy last year, this year it came with a 4.5% raise.

2011 Boston Marathon entry
Despite a disappointing fall marathon, my qualification from 2009 is still good. The Boston Marathon sold out in a record eight hours this year, so I feel pretty darn fortunate to have gotten my entry in.

2010 wasn't all good. Here's where things didn't go so well:

Lowlights
My mom's stroke
I really can't articulate how bad this was. She was lucky that it happened when and where it did, because she had the best possible shot at full recovery. While it looked like she did achieve full recovery early on, over time it became obvious that there is some permanent impairment. Add that to her existing health problems, and you have a situation where she is rapidly declining and not willing to make many changes to accommodate the new normal. (I'll cover this topic in a little more depth in a follow-up post.) She reminds me of my dad at the beginning of his last decline, and it's scary. All I can do is continue to do the best I can for her and hope it'll be enough.

Relationship tanked
I actually had to debate about whether this belongs in the highlight category or the lowlight one. It's a highlight in the sense that ending it was the right thing to do, and my friends were amazingly gentle and supportive when I needed it most. I don't think the ebbing of love and final extinction is anything other than a lowlight, though, so here it is.

Crappy marathon
It wasn't the race I trained for, but the photographic evidence sure shocked me into making some positive changes. I'm looking to redeem myself in Boston this year.

Blogging
I mentioned a while ago that I want to take this blog in new directions, but I'm stalled on a plan. I also seem to have less and less time to write these days, to the point where I feel out of balance. I have a feeling that this is going to end up in my (late) 2011 goals somehow, but I haven't quite figured out how to make that happen.

On the whole, there was much more that was good about 2010 than not. I don't know what to expect for 2011, but I believe in creating our own luck. Let's make it a good one.

What were your highlights and lowlights for 2010?