Wise Bread Post #3 Is Published!

I was so excited when another $10 credit showed up in my Amazon Account last night. I thought it was Wise Bread giving me an extra treat because my last guest post ended up getting republished on a couple other financial blogs including MSN Money. This morning, my 3rd guest post was actually published. So, while I'm not special, and was not getting the star treatment from Wise Bread, it's still cool to see something that I've written published somewhere other than my own personal blog!

I'm doing okay with my challenge of writing five articles that get published by December 25th. Wise Bread is going to run a Thanksgiving-themed article some time before Turkey Day (duh) that I wrote as my 4th submission to them. My goal is to have $50 (the payment for five Wise Bread articles) in credit on Amazon that I can gift to my boyfriend, Mr. Spendypants, for Christmas.

Here's the post that was published today:

5 Pot Luck Parties That Help You Share The Wealth

I love throwing parties. I love dressing up. I love cooking for an audience. I love spending time with old friends and meeting new ones. I love it. And to be perfectly honest, parties are really my only motivation for cleaning my house. So, to keep my tidy boyfriend happy and our home from looking like the residence of teenage squatters, I try and have at least one house party a month.

Unfortunately for me, Halloween marks the beginning of Poverty Season, that glorious time of the year when both my car and home insurance premiums are due, which is bookended by my two heinous property tax payments, and includes four major holidays. That said, having no money has never kept me from having a good time. Over the years I’ve developed several pot luck-style parties that are not only easy to tweak for just about any location or age group, but are beneficial to me, my friends and my community. Here are the five parties I’ll be hosting between now and the New Year:

THE CLOTHING SWAP PARTY—This is the classic frugal party. The basic premise: Trade the clothes you are sick of wearing with your girlfriends. I try and make this party as much about girlie empowerment as it is about avoiding the mall. I only have three rules:

1. No bartering or selling. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for something. At the clothing swap it comes free, with no strings attached.

2. Be generous. Allow the extra big or extra tall or extra little ladies who have trouble finding clothes that fit on a regular basis to have first dibs on accessories like hand bags and scarves. If there are duplicate items don’t hog them both.

3. Don’t bring stinky clothes. Sadly, this isn’t common sense for everyone.

I like to throw this party in early November so people have an opportunity to find party clothes and gifts for free in advance of the holidays. This is also a terrific Mommy and Me event. Last year I collected over $1000 in baby clothes and supplies from one swap I attended with a lot of new mothers. I was able to outfit several friends’ nurseries with crib linens, toys and clothes that they could have otherwise never afforded. One of my friends who lives in Upstate New York organized a hugely successful version of this party at her kids’ grade school where everyone brought in their old winter coats they’d outgrown and “shopped” for new coats for the school year. I recently heard about a school district-wide prom dress swap that was organized by some clever moms in Minnesota.

I serve fruit and cheese at this party, along with tea and coffee. Typically, my friends will show up bearing wine, fancy crackers, or a dessert without me having to ask them to. (They’re good that way).

This party is always a cinch to clean up. In exchange for the tax write off donation receipt, one of my guests will usually volunteer to run the leftover clothes over to the battered women's shelter.

GAME DAY—Once a month, my boyfriend and I live without electricity for one day and invite the neighbors over for a low-fi evening of board games and homemade dessert. Enjoy the board game renaissance with games like Agricola, Carcassonne, and Hey! That's My Fish that can be played in about an hour, have the depth of Chess or Mah Jongg and can be easily taught to kids and adults alike. As an added bonus, playing board games by candlelight makes Touch of Evil extra scary and Power Grid extra ironic.

This October we’re pulling out all our spooky games like Ghost Stories and Fury of Dracula and serving fun sized candy bars and Mexican hot chocolate for dinner in honor of Halloween.

THANKSGIVING REDUX--Who doesn't overcook for this holiday? During the week following Turkey Day invite everyone over for a pot luck dinner of shared Thanksgiving leftovers. Last year the average cost of a basic Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people was $44.61. This did not include extra food or booze. By hosting Thanksgiving Dinner Part 2: Electric Boogaloo, you not only amortize the cost of the turkey and all the trimmings, but you also avoid eating the same leftovers for the next month, and you get help washing the dishes.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/18/thanksgiving-dinner-costs-forbeslife-cx_ls_1119food.html

As part of this year’s Turkey Day festivities I am going to raffle off local honey and homemade preserves as a fundraiser for a Heifer International project that will train farmers in Tanzania to farm fish and keep bees. It only takes $30 to buy a hive and train a beekeeper!

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.3978597/

THE CARD MAKING PARTY—I love this party for many reasons. First and foremost because all the supplies for it fit into one flat rate mailing box that fits under my bed. It’s like the one pot meal of craft parties. The second reason I love this party is because it costs next to nothing. In preparation for this party, I collect cool and free ephemera throughout the year. Doilies, maps, foreign language newspapers, leftover wallpaper, fortune cookie fortunes, old stamps, bar coasters, etc… all go into the one box for easy storage. Party guests bring a pair of scissor and personal items like photos or locks of hair. I supply the Freecycled glue, glitter and other doodads to add to the totally recycled paper supply. No crafting experience (or talent) is necessary to create personal collage-style holiday card masterpieces that would make Nick Bantock proud.

http://books.google.com/books?id=-uN7GStOj7AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=griffin+and+sabine&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

My favorite aspect of this party is how stuff can be taken from the waste stream and transformed into objects of beauty. This is a great way to reuse the envelopes that are enclosed with credit card offers, tiny bits of wrapping paper, and even food packaging. Many people are no longer sending holiday cards, due to financial and environmental costs, so handmade cards made from recycled materials provides a pretty and practical solution to both concerns.

This party works for anyone old enough to use scissors without supervision. I roll out butcher paper on the living room floor for the workspace, which makes cleaning up a snap—just roll up the paper with the left over glitter and toss that into the recycling bin at the end of the party, or use it to start fires in the fireplace. Usable supplies go back into the storage box for next year.

I like to combine this party with a cookie exchange where guests bring a batch of cookies to share. In addition to handmade cards, guests can also decorate boxes and paper bags they can package the cookies they get at the party as gifts.

http://katescreativekitchen.blogspot.com/2009/05/home-made-gift-bags.html

http://www.undertheinkfluence.com/?p=391

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/recycling-crafts/paper-bows.shtml

http://rubberstamping.about.com/od/techniquesandtutorials/ss/Box.htm

(Overachievers can get a head start on their Valentines).

THE BOOK EXCHANGE PARTY—Instead of throwing a New Years Eve party, which for most people is synonymous with expensive booze and snacks, I have a much thriftier New Years Day brunch instead. My boyfriend fires up “Excalibur,” his deep dish Belgian waffle iron, and makes his famously light and delicious zeppelin waffles. I make a gigantic cauldron of my mother’s infamous spiced tea. We invite our favorite bookworms to clear their shelves of books (that they've loved but are now just taking up space) and bring them to our home. Everyone discards the books they don't want onto the communal pile and picks up new, free reading material. I donate leftover books, usually over a hundred, to the public library book drive.

As part of their Earth Day event this year, a friend’s Girl Scout troop organized a city-wide book swap for kids. This is obviously an easily hacked idea for any age group!

Mail Order Catalogs=The Devil

Okay. This is sad.

I bought a lightly used black and white striped sweater on ebay last week by J. Crew. ($52). Since I haven't bought anything from J. Crew in such a long time and I couldn't try on the ebay sweater for obvious reasons, I went by my local store while running errands to try on a couple sweaters to make sure I still fit a medium and they haven't done anything weird to their fit like changing their sizing. While I was in the store, I picked up the current catalog as "future reference." My business stuff is starting to look worn since I haven't replaced anything since I started The Compact almost three years ago that didn't start as someone else's cast off. I figured I'd keep the catalog on file so in the future I can do price comparisons when I ebay shop, and not do that dumb thing where you spend more to buy on ebay than the item cost new at the store in the first place.

Even though I haven't succumbed and bought anything new from J. Crew, I actually read the entire catalog. Yes. I read it. All the ridiculous "pretty is in" fashion copy. I keep petting it like a treasure.

For extra pathetic points, even though the outfits showcasing the clothes are extra cute, I don't actually live in a climate where I could ever layer 4 items of clothing to replicate any of the "fall looks."

Oh, and I'm officially old because all the models for women's wear now look like children to me.

It has represented a good hour of quality entertainment. So maybe that's worth something?

Hey! MSN Money Picked Up My Article!

Self-storage is not a savvy solution

After $48,000 in rent, she's finally selling her stuff.

Posted by Karen Datko on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 9:32 AM

This post comes from Max Wong at partner blog Wise Bread.

Recently I did an intervention on Sarah, one of my dearest friends. It wasn't the first time. Over the last few years I have unsuccessfully attempted to get her to seek help for a problem that has cost her conservatively $48,000 and put financial and emotional stress on her family.

Recently, after more than five years of trying to manage her problem, she finally hit rock bottom. She once again had to borrow money from her family -- this time to pay for her daughter's health care. Sarah had $800 of the $900 doctor bill in the bank, but she'd already earmarked that money for the horrible monkey on her back. Sarah has a substance abuse problem -- but not with drugs. Sarah has a problem with self-storage.

• Bing: How to find self-storage auctions

Sarah used to have financial stability. But five years ago she made a major life change when she decided, at age 40, to adopt a child and become a single parent. Sarah sold her beautiful 3,000-square-foot home so she could afford to quit her high-powered job and be a stay-at-home mom until her daughter could start preschool. She moved into a 1,200-square-foot apartment in a good school district.

This was all part of a good, long-term plan.

Unfortunately, she then made what became possibly the worst financialdecision of her entire life: She put the 1,800 square feet worth of possessions that didn't fit into the apartment into self-storage.

Similar to a technique drug dealers use to reel in future customers, the storage company offered Sarah, a first-time user, free product to ensure her loyalty. Convinced that she would be able to sell, donate or otherwise dispose of her extra stuff during the "first 30 days free rent" period that her storage company offers to all new customers, Sarah moved her designer guest-room furniture, her Christmas decorations, her art collection, etc., into four of the cheapest storage units available.

"I'm just going to use this as a staging area to get organized," she told me at that point in time. "That way, I'll have four weeks to figure stuff out and won't have to make any financial decisions about what to get rid of under duress."

She never moved out.

Although she has plenty of very valuable things in storage, as we surveyed the contents of one of Sarah's units earlier this week she finally did the math. Even if she pulled everything out of the unit and set it on fire in the parking lot, it would still be a better financial decision than keeping it in storage for another month. Five years x $200 a month per unit x four units = $48,000.

And that total doesn't even account for the money spent on gasoline to get her to and from her storage or all the late fees she's paid on other bills because she chose to pay her storage bill on time so her stuff wouldn't be seized for nonpayment. The phone company can turn off your service, but the storage company can auction off your dream diary, fake IDs, and herpes medication to the highest bidder.

Although Sarah's situation may be the worst that I know of personally, she's hardly alone. According to the Self Storage Association, 50% of storage unit renters are storing what won't fit into their homes. One out of every 11 Americans rents storage.

Watching Sarah's horrible journey has made me realize that although self-storage (like easy credit) can be beneficial to a percentage of the population, it's a pact with Satan for many folks who don't have an iron fist over their finances or excellent time-management skills. Quite simply, it's bad on several fronts.

Self-storage is a bad investment. I called four different storage companies with units in my area of Los Angeles. The cheapest price for the smallest storage space, a 5-by-5-foot unit, in my neighborhood is $67 per month. The first month costs just a mere $1, but that's not counting the one-time-only $22 "administration fee" that they'll also tack on to the first 30 days.

Although all those numbers sound doable financially, if I rented this space, I'd be out a whopping $760 in the first 12 months, all to rent a space that's the size of my laundry room. In other words, stuff that isn't functional enough to put in my house and use every day would become more and more expensive with each passing year.

(On a side note, I had to hang up on three out of the four storage sales reps because I was getting such a hard sell. They continued to demand my personal information even after I'd told them that their rental prices were beyond my budget.)

Self-storage can lead to overconsumption. Self-storage is like diet food. It fools the mind by fooling the eye. If your clutter isn't visible in your house, do you really have a spending problem?

The first self-storage facilities were built in Texas in the late 1960s. It took 25 years to build the first 1 billion square feet of storage. But it took just eight years (1998-2005) to add the second billion. According to theNational Association of Home Builders, the average 1960s home was 1,200 square feet. In 2004 the average home had ballooned to almost twice that size to 2,330 square feet.

Bigger houses are harder to fill up, which may explain why Americans buy twice the number of consumer goods than the citizens of any other First World nation. (OK, so we're a geographically huge country, but if we've got such big homes, why do we need an additional billion square feet of storage space?) The environmental cost of creating, transporting and finally housing 2 billion square feet of unused possessions is mindboggling.

Self-storage can waste time as well as money. Self-storage companies count on the basic physics of human laziness, that is: Objects at rest remain at rest ... in storage. After all, who wants to spend their precious free time digging through boxes looking for stuff? Sarah, in her efforts to deal with her storage problems, has spent hundreds of hours "organizing" her stuff in storage, attempting to repack it more efficiently so she can scale down to smaller, cheaper units.

Self-storage is urban blight. In all fairness, one of the storage companies in my area is housed in the hollowed-out facade of an Art Deco office building, so that's quite pretty. But for the most part, self-storage facilities are architectural monsters. In addition to being ugly as sin, they bring in few jobs or sales tax benefits to the community, compared with other structures of similarly huge proportions.

Self-storage can keep you from living in the moment. There are certain groups of people -- like those who live on sail boats or the newly moved -- who can follow their dreams because they can temporarily stash their possessions in storage. Storage gives them the wiggle room to experience life without being connected to personal belongings. For more than half the storage renters, however, this is simply not the case.

Once a month, one of the storage companies in my neighborhood holds an "estate sale" where the owner of the company sells off the contents of units that were seized for nonpayment of rent. What odd, desperate or lazy story is behind this lapse of judgment? Why the renters failed to move their possessions out of storage before the rent was due is always a mystery. What tales of woe are behind the abandoned photograph albums, bronzed baby shoe ashtrays or the hand-embroidered vintage napkins? Why weren't these items, so obviously full of sentimental value, kept in the home where they could be used and admired?

A clearer narrative about why items were acquired is visible from a lot of the sale merchandise, however. You can almost hear the nagging spouses behind the half dozen exercise bikes and ThighMasters for sale each month or the siren call of Martha Stewart behind the hundreds of half-finished craft items.

Whether they are nostalgic artifacts from the past or wishful self-help tools for the future, none of these objects relate to the present-day lives of their former owners, which is probably why they were put in storage to begin with. These monthly sales are sad museums, a collection of failed ventures and unfulfilled dreams of what could be.

As with every successful product, self-storage provides a powerful storyline for the consumer to buy into: that preserving memories of the past or the potential of the future through material goods is valuable. For the past five years, Sarah has denied the chaos that keeping so much stuff in storage brings to her daily life. Her dream of returning to her former standard ofliving in the future has cost her the very security she wants for her daughter and their quality of life today. That $48,000 could have gone toward her daughter's college fund. It could have paid for a lifetime of vacations. It could have been a down payment on a house.

Up until she hit rock bottom, I think Sarah actually believed that she would one day find her way back into a big house in the hills, even though she's a self-employed single parent facing a global financial downturn. As I photographed her possessions to list on Craigslist, she fretted about selling her formal dining room set, because she wanted to pass it on to her daughter as a family heirloom. That her daughter, who is in kindergarten, might not like the style of the set as an adult and would have no emotional connection to an object that she'd only ever seen in storage, never crossed her mind.

If Only Every Wikipedia Page Were This Funny

In an effort to become a honey tycoon, I've been reading a lot of obscure beekeeping-related materials.

I love how Justin O. Schmidt describes the sensation of being stung by various stinging insects like he is reviewing fine wines.

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index or the Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index is a pain scale rating the relative pain caused by different Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center. Schmidt has published a number of papers on the subject and claims to have been stung by the majority of stinging Hymenoptera.His original paper in 1984[1] was an attempt to systematize and compare the hemolytic properties of insect venoms. The index contained in the paper started from 0 for stings that are completely ineffective against humans, progressed through 2, a familiar pain such as a common bee or wasp sting, and finished at 4 for the most painful stings. In the conclusion, some descriptions of the most painful examples were given, e.g.: "Paraponera clavata stings induced immediate, excruciating pain and numbness to pencil-point pressure, as well as trembling in the form of a totally uncontrollable urge to shake the affected part.

"Subsequently, Schmidt has refined his scale, culminating in a paper published in 1990[2] which classifies the stings of 78 species and 41 genera of Hymenoptera. Notably, Schmidt described some of the experiences in vivid and almost synesthetic detail:

1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.

1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.

1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.

2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.

2.0 Yellowcoat (yellow jacket): Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.

2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.

3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.

3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.

4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.

4.0+ Zapper ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.[3]

I'm A Guest Blogger On Wise Bread Today!

Go here:

http://www.wisebread.com/gadzukes-10-ways-to-use-up-your-zucchini-bounty

Last week Wise Bread, one of my favorite frugality/personal finance sites, posted an invite for guest bloggers. I submitted several story ideas at 11pm and the following morning I woke up to an email asking me to write my zucchini pitch into an 800 word column. Yay! How much do I love immediate gratification?

Even though the 800 word story only earned me $10 Amazon gift card, I'm so excited that my little article was published! Today, the editor who worked with me on the zucchini story sent me an email telling me that she'll be contacting me about my other story ideas. Yay! Potential future work!

While I can't put the $10 Amazon gift card directly into my 100k savings account, I'm hoping to use it down the road to offset the cost of some of my Italian textbooks...and put that money I save on books into savings.

I Hate To Be One Of Those Lame People

who blog about their appliances. But I admit it:

I'm an appliance whore. 

The only major disagreement that I have ever had with Mr. Foxypants is over my refrigerator. That's the one thing that I had to leave behind for my renters when I moved in with him last year. My old fridge was custom-built for me by Marvel, the refrigerator division of Viking. It was such a pain in the ass to manufacture, that I own the prototype. Marvel will never make another one like it. Basically, it is a glass-fronted undercounter unit designed for restaurants stacked on top of a stainless steel freezer unit. It's gorgeous, works like a champ and uses about as much energy as a single light bulb every month. Mr. Foxypants hates this refrigerator because it is so small and doesn't have door storage for his enormous collection of moldy preserves and out-of-date condiments.

It was a true testament of my love that I left that piece of appliance perfection behind for my renters, and moved in with the 20 cubic foot, black, pebble-finished, monstrosity that my boyfriend brought into the relationship. I've tried to get over having to store my food in a crappy refrigerator that takes up nine square feet of my precious kitchen floor real estate. I've told myself that owning a beautiful fridge does not make me a better person. I've actually prayed for the ugly fridge to break down so I could have an excuse to replace it. I know. This is pathetic.

So, even though Mr. Foxypants sent me the following email last friday--

"I know you really love your marvel. And in case it’s not apparently obvious, I’m trying to go out of my way to get you something special to fill that refrigerated void in your life…"

--still it came as a total shock to me when Mr. Foxypants announced on Saturday that we were going to go shopping for a new refrigerator. I think part of his change of heart came from the fact that his refrigerator is loud, leaks water, and doesn't close entirely unless you bump the door with your hip really hard. But I suspect the real reason for this decision is that compared to my darling vintage stove which I moved into his house last month, there can be no doubt: his fridge is ass ugly. 

Oh, how I love my shallow boyfriend who cares about filling that refrigerated void in my life.

Now, here's my question: When did refrigerators get so huge? We went to four different home stores on Saturday night on a reconnaisance mission and every single one of them was filled with gigantic french door fridges. It's no wonder Americans are so fat. It would take a family of 12 to eat through 25 cubic feet of food before it goes bad. Even though we only looked at the Energy Star rated models, all of them use more energy than my 11-year-old Marvel which, by the way, isn't Energy Star rated, just smaller and more efficient. The only small refrigerators that anyone carries are those rinkydink ones you could rent for your dorm room for $20 a month. None of the stores carry any of the top 10 most efficient models that have received excellent reviews online. Which, to me, seems slightly outrageous. 

Mr. Foxypants and I return home in a state of righteous annoyance. Even though he agrees that it's important to be as green as possible with this purchase, he feels like I'm being unreasonable about my expectations. There is no way to get a bottom freezer, 100% stainless steel, freestanding, restaurant grade refrigeration unit that also meets our energy efficiency standards, and has a small footprint for under $4000. And since I am allegedly on a savings rampage, I don't really have a leg to stand on, because he's the one who will be paying for the refrigerator, not me.

I refuse to be thwarted. I spend three hours the next day calling every other new and used appliance store in a 25 mile radius of my house searching for the most elusive of cute appliances. (All right, the most elusive of cute appliances would be a washing machine, but I already have one of those and this is my story). As you might guess, cute industrial refrigerators are basically impossible to find used because who wants to get rid of pure cooling awesomeness? That's right. No one. The manager of the local fancy appliance store does take pity on me and offers to give me a $700 discount on their Liebherr 30 inch floor model, so it will only cost me $4000 without tax, a price that I cannot afford and cannot even use to prove my boyfriend wrong about my intractable nature. 

So, how dumb am I? Really dumb. Because, had I looked on ebay I would have found a slightly used, but still under warranty Liebherr refrigerator for HALF its normal sticker price that measures a slinky 24 inches by 24 inches by 81 inches, offered by an ebay dealer located THIRTY miles from my house, and been able to buy it from the comfort of my home instead of spending two frustrating hours walking through home stores and three hours on the phone calling every other store in a 25 mile radius. 

And in the world of refrigeration, the 24 inch Liebherr is the only unit that can hold a candle to my Marvel. 

Yes, anything worth having can be found used. I bought the Liebherr 24 inch off ebay this morning and it's being delivered on Thursday. 

Color me smug.

Channeling My Inner-1950's Housewife, Who, By The Way, Is Awesome

I needed to replace the gorgeous vintage Wedgewood stove in my old house (which I moved to the house that I share with Mr. Foxypants) with a "new" stove for my renters. I am a big fan of  Okeefe & Merritt and Wedgewood stoves from the 1940's and 1950's. In addition to cooking like champs, owning a vintage stove is like having a classic car in your kitchen. They are just so cute. So, instead of buying a new stove, I went shopping for a vintage range on Craigslist. I found a O&M cutie for just $100! Vintage stoves in LA sell for $1200-$12,000 depending on the model and condition, so this one was a total steal. The reason why it was a steal? Well, that would be because it was in pieces. I spent half of yesterday assembling the parts into what resembled the other vintage stoves I have owned. Then I called the gas company for a free appliance check, so I could be sure there weren't any gas leaks I wasn't smelling. 

The gas guy came out and told me I needed a "real" stove mechanic to fix the stove, as the safety valve to my oven didn't work and two of the burners refused to light and needed to be replaced. "You know, you could buy a new stove for $300," he told me sarcastically on his way out the door.

Today I stopped by Sav-On Appliance in Burbank. (I must give Marsha and Emmett, the owners, a huge plug. Due to their proximity to Hollywood, Sav-on supplies most of the vintage appliances you see on tv shows and movies. They have beautiful vintage stuff along with a bunch of other crate damaged but totally working new appliances. They are also amazing at what they do). I asked Marsha if she had a oven safety valve for my model stove lying around and if she could do a house call. Instead of charging me $300 for what she thought was simple work, Marsha proceeded to give me a 20 minute clinic on what could be wrong with my current stove that I could repair. For example, she told me that cobwebs could be blocking the gas line and that I could clear that up with a bent paperclip.

Armed with steel wool, a darning needle, and new information, I returned to my rental property. An hour later the stove is super clean and works perfectly! I didn't even have to call Marsha and have her walk me through how to disable the heater (yes, the range has a HOUSE HEATER in addition to a broiler, oven, griddle and four burners) so my renters wouldn't scorch themselves accidentally.

Vintage stove completely assembled with a flat head screwdriver and a darning needle! 

So, in addition to saving $1100 on the purchase of a vintage stove through savvy Craigslist shopping, and saving $300 on repairs by fixing the thing myself, I now have stove repair bragging rights.

Which are priceless.

There are several morals of the story:

1. Vintage stoves are the greatest. When's the last time you heard about someone fixing their microwave oven with a darning needle?
2. If something was created for a 1950's housewife to use, it probably means it was designed for her to fix. This means you can fix it too.
3. Just because some guy looks at your cute, but totally impractical shoes and deems you not handy...well, that just means he's a terrible dresser.

Abe's Birthday, and about pennies

It's (still) Feb 12, which used to be Abe Lincoln's birthday (still is) but no longer a holiday. Nevertheless, I have been collecting pennies all week wherever I find them, and adding them to my piggy bank. I took a bunch of items to two local consignment stores -- one gave me $8 cash and the other is working on pricing and will keep the items for 2 months before donating if they don't sell.

One store is for kids' clothes, and since I have the trendy teens, she took a handful of their trendy items, while the other is for women. I took a bunch of costume jewelry to that place, and she took almost everything I had, which is very nice. My dresser top is "lighter" without those items that I never wore anyway.

Tonight I went through the DVDs that were "mine" from way back -- mostly chick flicks -- and will take those to the used book & DVD store fro cash tomorrow. Not sure how much I'll get -- but I'm not going to watch any more "Legally Blonde" or crappy movies about "I married my best friend's fiance or my formerly gay friend" or whatever. Life's too short to own crappy movies that you don't watch, don't you think?

And again with Coin Girl, I have found change on the street almost every day for the past week, as much as a dime, mostly pennies. Very cool.

I turned in my library books today ON TIME (no fees) and did not bounce any checks (NO FEES/PENALTIES) which for me is a pretty big deal, but may it get more usual as we proceed. I did buy 2 balls of yarn at Beverly's (on sale) but I had a $5 gift certificate from 2005 and thus the yarn cost me just $0.55.

Today I got all my tax papers together and took them to Mr Tax Guy. I believe I will get about $1500 back, and that's nice, but I also want to adjust my withholding ASAP so I have that money now vs later, after the government rolls around in it naked for a year. Tomorrow is payday when my first automatic savings deduction goes to my ING savings account (2.5 % interest). That will be "invisible savings, bec I don't see that account unless I go there online. I am not likely to spend what isn't accessible in my checking account and tied to my ATM card. I'm fooling myself into saving! How dumb am I? Or smart? Voila! I give you -- Julia Tracey, Mistress of the Penny.

Sleuthing to find pennies all over town,
"Moolia"

Julia's January Savings

(Hi, it's me -- popping in to post, per Miss Moneybags' request)

OK, so I may not have saved much in January -- I dipped into my emergency fund for a couple of sudden expenses (like food money for sick daughter in NY who couldn't wait tables while throwing up). My bank does the "Keep the Change" program, where it rounds up the extra change and adds it to my savings account. I saved about $10 that way. And in fact, in the past few years, it tells me I have saved $500+ in "keep the change." Where did it all go? This year I will track it.

I also made 7 cents in interest...but that will soon change, because I am going to open an ING-orange account, which pays better interest -- 2.5%, I saw on their site. That's an improvement over the 0.25% I'm getting in my BofA savings account. However, because I dipped below the minimum, I got dinged $18 and $3, which ate my "savings" and lost me some more.

So in actual savings, not so much.

However, a couple of changes are in motion. I have opened a new savings account, as mentioned, so just sitting still I will be earning more. I will be sure not to dip below the minimum in the other account, to avoid the charges. I'm on the alert for avoidable expenses like that -- like parking tickets, library fines, bounced checks, etc. -- wherever I can avoid such fees, I am focused on not forgetting about them or ignoring due dates, etc. That's a big step, for an "artiste" who never paid much attention.

Next, I recently met with my money guy -- a financial advisor, who gave me a homework assignment of determining all my interest rates and income vs expenses, to determine where I can save or consolidate. I told him I wanted to be $10k richer in a year -- I may not save that much in a big pile, but I will be that much more ahead, out of debt, etc. Mr Husband and I also chatted about the same topic and are united in our efforts on that front. Another big step.

If you haven't yet added money to your IRA, it's not too late to do so for 2008, and get credit for it. I'm trying to weigh if it's worth it to put money into my IRA now or just into savings with interest, because of the market crash. Mr. Moneyguy (no relation to Miss Moneybags) will help me with that.

I also have a bunch of tiddly little moneymaking ventures coming down the pike -- like keeping the aluminum cans instead of putting them into recycling. Like knitting java sweaters for coffee cups, to sell at local coffeehouse (they were impressed with my own handmade java sweater and want to have some to sell). Like a book I'm getting published and the percentage I will get from the publisher -- depending on how many sell. Like teaching a handful of classes at the adult school (no credential needed) -- perhaps $1,000 by the end of spring. Like consigning a bunch of books, clothes, and household items, and selling other items on eBay.

So though I don't have any real profit to declare at present, I have been making great strides toward money in the bank, money on the way, and debt-B-gone.

Julia, former spendthrift

Spending Money Left, Right and Center

Wow, wasn't the inaugeration great? What an exciting end to a historic election! I'm so proud that I live in a country where it's possible for a black man, a woman and an angry hamster to run for president. 

Other than the inauguration, yesterday really sucked.

I thought I was doing great with the challenge. I'm selling a book a day on half.com, I've been eating all my meals at home, and I've been batching all my errands in an effort to save time and gas. On Saturday, I gave blood, got a haircut, dropped off a final check to the painting crew that is working on my house, donated 100 books to the library book drive, and recycled my laser printer's toner cartridge. 

Yesterday, I realized that, in my zealousness, I'd not only recycled my old toner cartridge but the drum unit of my printer too.

The cost of a replacement drum unit: $119.

Can I just say that spending that money was so painful? It was like getting a paper cut on your tongue or trying to bite off a hangnail but accidentally ripping it down to your knuckle instead. Excruciating and annoying in equal measure. My exciting $100 half.com earnings for January were wiped out in one flick of my wrist and the super-speedy recycling pick-up schedule at Staples. I was SO angry at myself for this stupid waste of money, gas and time. 

But, my anger was short lived. It lasted exactly eleven minutes.

I wish I could tell you that years of yoga and meditation allowed me to work through my frustration with tremendous efficiency, but that's not what happened. What happened eleven minutes after I discovered that I'd thrown away a key part to an important piece of office equipment was this: Mr Foxypants came into my office and told me that Evelyn, who is my favorite koi, had been killed by raccoons that morning. 

What I learned yesterday is that it's very hard to stay angry about a broken printer when you are on your hands and knees collecting the loose scales and bones of your pet, wrapping her half-eaten remains in a cloth, and tearfully digging a hole under the lemon tree for her grave. And while she was one of our most expensive fish, I felt no sadness about her purchase price, I only felt the loss of her life. While a drum unit costs more than a hunk of molded plastic really should, it's replaceable. Evelyn is not. None of our other fish have her soft expression or her regal swimming style. The pond feels empty without her.

People who think that money cannot buy happiness have never purchased a pet.

The Hateful House

Q: Why is it that your house never looks as good as it does when it goes on the market?

At this point I might as well call this my 110k Savings Challenge because if I spend $10,000 repainting my house, tearing down the rotting garage and replacing the broken hot water heater, I'll consider myself lucky. 

I have a love/hate relationship with my house.  Mainly its been a hate relationship for the last couple of years. My 1920's abode is showing its age and falling apart. I have lived in "that house," much to the chagrin of my neighbors, for a long time because I just never had the spare $7500 lying around to pay someone to repaint the exterior or the spare time to do it myself. 

Last April I moved into Dinky Manor, which is my boyfriend's 1937 dumpy bungalow. We've spent all of last year making his place livable, while my house stood vacant and overgrown. While I'm so happy to be sharing a home with Mr. Foxypants, my housing situation has been endlessly frustrating to me. I had renters last May who were willing to live through me slowly renovating the place while they lived there, but then my sewage system went kaput and needed to be completely replaced. Right after that, my garage, which had been derelict when I bought my house a decade ago, finally decided to cave in. Finally the water heater broke. All this time, I've been paying my mortgage and property taxes, of course. 

Well, it's time to put my house to work. I have two friends who want to rent out my place starting March 1st, so I have to get my house into excellent living condition--ironically a condition that I never experienced during the 10 years I lived there. 

My friends have agreed to pay me $875 more than my monthly mortgage in rent each month. (They will also take care of the gas and electric bill and supply their own renter's insurance). The extra $10,500 each year that I will make in profit by renting out my house will cover my homeowner's insurance, my property taxes and the water bill. So, starting in March, my biggest financial burden will be paid for by other people and my month living expenses will consist of paying for the phones and the high speed internet connection at Mr. Foxypants' house! 

In the mean time, I'm scrambling to stay ahead of the renovation costs. I'm hemorrhaging money which totally sucks. I've been using a credit card (which is the Devil) to pay for all the home repair...meaning that I'm already in debt and it's only the 10th day of the year. Luckily, I've sold $80 in books on half.com this week and I sold one of my handmade necklaces today for $60. None of this money was anticipated, and I'm really hoping that weird little windfalls continue coming my way...not that I can count on that though. But if I can somehow continue to eek out an additional $140 a week by selling random stuff this year that would be $7140! Almost enough to pay for that paint job.

So, unfortunately, the next 50 days will be spent trying to pay down that credit card so I don't have interest-accruing debt cutting into my savings plan once my house-as-profit-generating-machine kicks into gear. Grrr...

Please Don't Tell My Mother

I learned at an early age that I cannot have a sane conversation with my mother about money. In 1990, while still in college, I purchased an espresso maker. It cost $40. Other people's parents would judge that as a prudent purchase since it allowed me to skip buying $4 mochachinos every day like my fellow undergrads. Well, the way my mother went on about it for TEN YEARS after I graduated from college (and still owned the same espresso maker, mind you) you would have thought that I'd robbed a convenience store to pay down my online poker debts. How could I be that fiscally irresponsible? It was almost as bad as that time during freshman year when I had a psychotic break and bought an answering machine. Oh. My. God. What a ridiculous extravagance.  You know, it's a slippery slope. First you buy an answering machine and the next thing you know you're Evita Peron and you've just bankrupted Argentina. Explaining to my mother that I'd split the whopping $30 bill for the answering machine with my room mate, made no difference in her mind. I shouldn't need an answering machine because I shouldn't have a phone in my dorm room in the first place. Who could be calling me anyway? And, I don't need to call anywhere but home and I can do that four floors down in the lobby of my dormitory on the pay phone just like she did when she went to college in 1962. 

My mother is a victim of her upbringing. Her domineering father came from nothing and made himself a fortune. And even though as a self-made millionaire, he could afford to raise his family in a beautiful house, drive luxury cars and install the first private swimming pool in the state of Kansas in his backyard, I don't think he ever psychologically got over The Depression. He was a brutal skinflint who would drive 50 miles to save a penny on a gallon of gas. To save money on electricity, he would turn off the power to the house every night at 9pm on the dot. Cramming for that final exam? Too bad. You should have done all your studying while the sun was out. Quit crying about your bronchitis. You'll still be coughing in the morning, and you can plug the vaporizer back in at 6am. 

My father's parents had the opposite reaction to enduring The Depression. My paternal grandfather was a compulsive gambler and my paternal grandmother developed an addiction to shopping.

So, is it any surprise that my parents have a very conservative view on spending money?

I am very good at spending money. I'm also good at making it. But what I'm best at is "getting by." I live the most bourgeois life on no money. Between 1996 and 1998 I paid for my entire life by trash picking home furnishings and reselling them at weekly garage sales. 2002 to 2004 were paid for entirely with ebay sales of items that were gathering dust in my house. In 2006 I made $26,000 but managed to travel to Italy three times and Spain once. I never worry about making "enough" money, because I know that I will always be able to make the amount I need to get by, because I always have. This attitude makes my parents crazy. From their point of view, I have inherited the worst, not the best, traits of their parents. I am the tightwad spendypants of their nightmares.

My parents have been good savers their entire lives. Their fat retirement account has allowed them both to retire at age 65, and devote themselves full time to philanthropy. My father, who gave up his private practice three years ago, volunteers his doctor skills three times a week at the local VA hospital. He sits on a variety of medical ethics boards. My mother runs two Head Start programs and teaches art at the local child crisis center. My parents moved into a smaller house and hired a gardener so my mother, who suffers from arthritis, could use 100% of her remaining hand strength for designing and maintaining one of her city's major parks. 

I'm not complaining. I'd much rather have parents who are good at saving than parents who are not. Too many of my friends are looking at a future of paying not only for their own retirement, but for the retirement of their parents who are buying boats and plasma televisions, content with the idea that their children will take care of them in their old age. Not that I believe that taking care of your parents is a bad thing. Honoring your parents is a good thing. But, taking care of your parents shouldn't involve dipping into your children's college fund to pay down the credit card debts of their grandmother. So I'm very happy that my parents are solvent enough to do amazing things in their retirement. 

But I'm not sure that they are enjoying it. 

My parents, who are living on less than 2% of their retirement savings, are afraid to go on vacation. They can't afford it. Or, at least they think they can't. Which makes me very sad, because I spent my entire childhood listening to them talk about how they were going retire at age 55, sell all their belongings and retire in Kenya as volunteer medical workers. Granted, when I was growing up in 1970's Africa was not being torn asunder by civil war and AIDS, so I can understand why my parents decided that they didn't want to spend their golden years in an ever-expanding refugee camp. But the fact that they have given up on their lifelong dream of an exotic retirement, not to mention the entire third world, in order to hunker down in their two bedroom, suburban condo is just depressing. What is the point of saving for your dreams if you don't then spend it on your dreams? To make matters worse, my mother has macular degeneration, which means that she is slowly going blind. Which means she's on a ticking clock because the window to the world, that she has been saving for her entire life to see, is closing with every passing moment as her eyesight continues to fail.

I had a bitter argument with my mother over this just last week. I'm potentially going to be working in Italy and/or China this year, something I'm very excited about. My mother, who still fantasizes every day about living in Costa Rica, could not have been more negative about my plans. Won't I make more money if I stay here? She nags me about saving for the future, completely ignoring the fact that when I'm seventy, it's unlikely that head hunters from Italy will be knocking on my door and demanding to see my resume. She cannot fathom this idea because she's never been paid to work where she wants to live. 

The 100k Challenge should really be called The Roman Apartment Challenge, because that's what I really want. There's pretty much nothing that I like more than walking the streets of the Eternal City. In 2006 I decided that I was going to spend the next four years preparing to move to Rome. I'd work on becoming fluent in Italian, sell all my extraneous possessions and sock away a couple years of living expenses. In 2010, I'd move to Rome and figure things out as I went along. But, there was an unforeseen crimp in my plan:  in 2007 I fell in love with Mr. Foxypants. Luckily he shares my  expatriate fantasies, but unfortunately, he is tied by his job and his house to Los Angeles. I thought that finding my partner in life would dampen my desire for a permanent roman holiday, but it hasn't. My future roman apartment beckons. It's still the big, invisible hand, that pushes me toward certain life choices and away from others. Because of Mr. Foxypants' commitments, I won't be moving to Italy next year, but hopefully putting 100k in an interest bearing fund for 20 years will give me enough money that I won't have to think about retiring anywhere else. In the mean time, I'm going to continue to get by so I can continue to enjoy the world while I still have eyes to see it.

My parents have intentionally and unintentionally taught me an important lesson about retirement: I may not be able to grow old in Italy, but I'll always be able to grow old and blind in suburbia. So, why not try for Italy?

Why 100k?

A: It's my favorite candy bar.

B: Doesn't it sound flashier and more exciting than trying to save $10k?

C: I'm not sure if "100 large" means $100,000 or $1,000,000 and that extra zero is important.

D: It'll be fun.


I love New Year's. It's my second favorite holiday after Thanksgiving. I don't care about the fanfare, the drinking, or even the kiss at the stroke of midnight. (Okay, I DO care about the kiss. But since I get to kiss Mr. Foxypants any time I want, the kiss on New Year's is no better than a kiss on Lincoln's Birthday or Administrative Professionals' Day. But I digress). My very favorite aspect of New Year's is the "do-over." Did I get fat this year? Watch too much television? Keep an untidy house? Well, on New Year's it doesn't matter what I did LAST year. I get to wipe the slate clean and start all fresh and new. I have 365 days to do brilliant things with my life, achieve all sorts of ridiculously difficult goals...like putting $100,000 into a savings account for retirement.

I've been thinking and talking about this idea for a few months now and the general consensus appears to be: I'm nuts. But you know, all my best ideas involving self-improvement are harebrained ones. Here are some greatest hits:

•November 1, 2001--I resolve to "Get rid of 10 things a day." My once messy, now tidy house thanks me.

•New Year's Resolution 2002--aka "Meet you there!" In an effort to stop being such a depressed shut-in after the breakup of a long term relationship I decide that my answer to ANY invitation, regardless of how stupid, will be "Meet you there." Amazing hijinks ensue.

•January 7, 2006--I join The Compact and agree to "not buy anything new for one calendar year." Two years later, I'm still a member.

•Last year, I decided to find out if nice guys really do finish last by resolving to commit a selfless act of kindness every day for the entire year. Toward the end of the year I realized that my attempts at true altruism had not only resulted in

1. me (via charitable giving) being able to downsize my material possessions by 85% with no feelings of deprivation or guilt
2. an influx of incredible people into my circle of friends
3. me earning $99,905, which was much more than I anticipated making.

Unlike everyone else I know, 2007 was a great year for me financially. But watching others crash and burn around me as the market fell apart forced me to take a hard look at my money, which is something I've avoided doing, because I'm that immature.

I have no money saved for retirement.

(Well, that's not 100% true. I have IRAs that hold the meager contents of my former 401k plans, and a few funds that were eviscerated in October. But really, if I add up everything and add 4% interest for the next 20 years, I'm looking at retirement savings of about a quarter of a million dollars. Which wouldn't be all the terrible, except for the fact that people in my family generally live to see 100).

Uh oh.

So this year, 2009, I resolve to put $100,000 into savings. Did I mention that I made $99,905 before taxes in 2008? Okay. I thought so. But $100,000 really isn't that much, right? That's only $8333.33 per month or $273.97 per day.

It's the first of the year and a holiday, so my fund manager isn't around to open up a new retirement account for me. Which is annoying, because I really want to start a savings account TODAY as my New Year's resolution, not as my January 2, 2009 resolution. This might come as a surprise, but I'm kind of a tweaker about symbolism and crap like that. Luckily for me, while poking around on the Vanguard website, I come across an IRA that I thought I'd rolled into something else in 2004. So, I don't have to open an account. I can just use this old one until I max out the contribution at $5000. Hooray for lousy bookkeeping!

There's a little money still in the account that has been accruing interest for the last four years. At the close of yesterday, the balance of the account was $273.97.

Spooky.