Not Much to Say

It always seems to happen to me. I have a lot to say and a lot to share. Then I come to a point in time where I have a lot of thoughts by no way of getting them from my brain to paper. My husband and I are almost done with our first successful month of tracking most of our expenses. He tends to use cash more than I do, so his records aren't as accurate. I ask him about expenses, but only ever few days so some of the nuances get lost (e.g. was it $2.19 or $2.79).

Many bloggers I admire have specific topics they write about, whether it be weekly financial reviews or book reviews. I admit I'm a paradox. On my annual reviews, often one of my strengths is how detailed oriented I am. Yet in my personal life, everything is organized to a point - then it's all an amalgamation of confusion. I wish I had the discipline to be 75% organized in my life, rather than the 40% I currently am. I'm lucky since I have a good memory and cushions (e.g. extra money in my checking account) which usually keeps my disorganization from costing me money.

I have seriously considered delving more into Getting Things Done. I love lists and love crossing things off my list. But I lack the patience to do more research into what Getting Things Done entails. From what I know, you just make lots of lists so you don't need to make your brain remember things anymore. But what if my brain likes to remember? Maybe it will free my brain up for more creativity. I have accepted that I'm not a creative person. It's not that I don't have new ideas, but I have a hard time designing things. Maybe it's incorrect to categorize myself as uncreative, but more accurate to say that artistic endeavors (drawing, music, etc.) are not my strong suit.

On a side note, can anyone advise on how I can put the tracking bars onto my blog, showing my progress on my 3 goals? I know everyone has them - I just am not computer savvy enough to figure out how to do it.

Failing Miserably at My Goals

The first month of the year isn't over yet, but I can tell that I'm failing to meet what should be my monthly progress on my annual goals. It's sad to be so early in the year and know that I'm going to need to catch up a lot of lost ground in order to be successful. After the end of the month, I plan to do a formal review showing my exact progress. I wish I could say that I had progressed as far as I should have on at least one of my goals, but I don't think that's the case.

This month has been a tumultuous one, with some potential major changes for 2008. I'm not sure if I'll be living in San Francisco for the whole year (I'm already on a project where I travel out of town on a weekly basis). It's a bit too early to say what kind of changes may be in store, but my husband and I want to ensure that we take advantage of our youth - while still living responsibly, of course. This year may not be as frugal as I would like, but it should be exciting.

A Rediscovered Treasure – The Local Library

When I lived in NYC, I found one way of saving on my entertainment costs was to go to the local library. Since the library was only 2 blocks away, it was very convenient to go. Now I need to get into my car to go to the local library, but one benefit is I discovered there’s a smaller less yuppie farmer’s market outside of the main library in San Francisco on Sundays. Here are some reasons I like the library.

1. Most libraries are part of a library system and you can borrow books from one library and return the item to any other library in the system.
2. You can often order items to be put on hold for you at your local library – this means there is a huge collection of books at your fingertips. My library lets me order books online and will email me when they arrive.
3. You can renew items online or over the phone, saving a trip to the library.
4. Most libraries have free internet (this is a very popular feature, so make sure you get to the library early to sign up for a half hour or hour increment – I would not recommend visiting any financial related website on a public computer).
5. At my local library, I can order books that the library does not yet own, ensuring that I will eventually get to read those items. I also have the ability to put my holds on vacation if I’m not going to be around for some time.
6. Libraries have DVDs that you can borrow. If only I could get my husband into this, we could get rid of Netflix!
7. Libraries are a great resource for a lot of things. The main library in SF has some great career sections as well as sections focused on specific demographics.
8. I love reading recent magazines at the library. This is great for me since I can read it and not have to worry about disposing it (I hate throwing magazines away and always think I sohuld bring them to the gym or donate them to a hospital).

I hope my readers also find joy in this public service that their taxes help fund!

Light to No Posting In the Next Few Days

Readers, Please expect light to no posting in the next few days. This weekend I'm visiting some friends in the LA area.

Our Attempt at Tracking Expenses

You hear over and over again in the pfblog sphere and in financial planning articles that you need to track your expenses to get a handle on where your money is going. C and I tried doing this in August, but it was a dismal failure.

This January we decided to try again. I have an Excel spreadsheet that I try to update every night, or at least every other day. It lists name, item, cost, payment method, and a description of the item.

For example, an item like rent is categorized as being spent by the both of us. One area we're having trouble for is accounting for expenses that are reimbursed by our employers. I've been on the road the past few weeks, so I've been accumulating taxi, hotel, car rental, and air travel costs. What we've done so far is not tracked those items since they're fully reimbursed by my employer. But I do track my meal expenses despite my meal allowance since I get to keep whatever I don't spend.

We're halfway through the month and I'm proud to say that we've been able to remember to record everything thus far (at least that's what C has told me). Hopefully we won't be tripped up this weekend since we will be out of town.

It was a pretty hard road to get C to agree to track our expenses. I first brought it up soon after we were married and he was vehemently against it. Throughout our marriage I've slowly influenced him to be more conscious about our spending and to be more willing to do things that he once couldn't believe people would do.

When we were engaged, I showed C an article about Jonathan at MyMoneyBlog and he couldn't believe why someone would want to write a blog about their finances. Actually when I showed him that article, I had already started this blog, but I went on a hiatus after our wedding since I wanted to ensure that he was in agreement with it. He was, it just took some slow steps to work up the courage to tell him about it.

I guess the moral of this story is that you can influence your partner to your way of thinking, but don't try to do everything all at once.

Joint Goal

My husband and I have one major joint goal this year – that is to save $15,000 to go on a 4 week vacation. This vacation is going to span multiple countries and it’s a major vacation we want to do before we have kids in a couple of years. C and I have been talking about this vacation for sometime and only recently did we come up with an estimated dollar amount of what we need to save. $15,000 is a significant amount of money. Our estimate has some cushion for currency exchange fluctuations. One area where I have always struggled with is letting my savings dissipate. If we spend less in one area, we usually just spend it in another area and don’t see any real benefit. C and I are going to do our best to save the $15K by cutting our spending in other areas and putting it towards this goal. C always says that we work so we can enjoy our money and we see this as the vacation of a lifetime.

It’s amazing the number of vacations C and I went on in 2007. We went on quite a few vacations to attend the weddings. We counted anything as a vacation if we had to obtain a hotel room for the trip. Unbelievable to me, we actually went on 10 vacations. Several of these vacations were only for 1 or 2 nights for friends’ weddings. We also each went on a single sex vacation with friends – I counted those two trips as one trip. Another trip was completely free from lodging and travel expenses (other than gas) since we drove to that destination and I was able to use points to get us a free hotel room. Since I travel quite a bit for work, I am often able to score personal vacations for little or no cost. So the total cost of our 10 vacations was . . . just over $4,000. When you consider the fact that airfare was involved in several of those vacations, I think that's a reasonable amount of money. I don’t track our expenses that closely, so this is just a ballpark of how much we spent.

Within those 10 trips, there were a lot of free hotel stays (I did not count the trip where we stayed at my friend’s house) and buy 1 get 1 free hotel stays (this was accomplished due to my hotel status). When I change jobs to a less travel intensive project, there is no way we’d be able to vacation so much with so little money!

I might be able to subsidize some of our $15K trip with hotel points and bonuses, but it’s going to be tough. Airfare alone for the both of us will probably be several grand since we’re planning on going to another continent and we will need to take a few more plane trips to get to the different countries we want to visit.

Wow, writing all of this down makes it seem really extravagant. While I do have a goal of retiring early, I am a big believe in conscious spending. You need to spend money on what makes you really happy, rather than letting it slip through your fingers. Lest you think we are living beyond our means, C and I have minimal debt and we do a good job with our savings. Our only debt is less than $10K in student loans. We both maxed out our 401Ks for 2007 and we’re waiting to do our taxes before determining how much we can contribute to our Roth IRAs. I am almost positive we are below the income limit, but I want to do the taxes to be sure. We also have an emergency fund and a house down payment fund.

How I Became Frugal

My experience with frugality began when I was living in NYC. I was a poor graduate student with family loans, educational loans, and sky high rent. In my prior life, I was a pampered college student that could meet all of my needs and most of my wants, courtesy of my parents.

Living on my own with no income was an eye opening experience. I remember passing up the jazz club with friends since the cover was $15. I wanted to go, but I remember thinking that I needed to make my money last as long as possible. With rent at $1,000 a month and less than $10,000 in the bank, I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the year.

This was an important time in my life. Had I transitioned from parental supported college immediately to the working world, I may not have gained as much appreciation for the difficulty of managing money and making money. At this time, I found the dollar stretcher, a website that has been an invaluable resource in helping me find ways to save and stretch my money.

Of course, I can't say I'm the epitome of frugality. I think it's all about the choices and tradeoffs that we make. My husband and I are planning on spending an extravagant amount of money on a vacation later this year. We are doing out best to minimize waste in our everyday lives - both for our wallets and the environment. We want to consciously spend our money on items that will bring us happiness rather than let it slip away.