She Who Has the Gold...

It's no secret that ever since I quit my job in the den of racist privilege back in October of 2011, Adam and I have not exactly been rolling in dough. For a long time, I relegated the household expenses to him, as he was the main breadwinner and I felt it would be inappropriate if I started making calls on how he spent his money.

I have always been... how did my brother put it once? Cheap. Yes, cheap. (I prefer "frugal" but I won't split semantic hairs.) That's not to say that I am not fully capable of spending a crapload of money when I want. I drive a Mini CooperS, which I bought new, and which carries a decent monthly payment. I refuse to relinquish our HBO subscription (at least until Game of Thrones ends for the season). I will spend gobs of money on our furry family members, our bipedal family members, and our beloved and amazing friends. I just don't spend money on myself. It seems silly and frivolous; if I have pants that still function as pants, I see no reason to buy more of them.

I've been wearing the same few pairs of jeans for the last five years or so. My mother must strong-arm me into purchasing new clothes for work (which, conveniently, only really means presentable shirts as we're encouraged to wear jeans to my place of employment). I will - as I always have - walk through my shoes before considering a new pair (unless Kat insists I buy some, and I can't argue with her). I buy towels and sheets and slipcovers for our dog-i-fied couches at discount stores.

Regardless of my personal proclivity for penny-pinching, Adam and I are not as financially secure as we would like to be, not by quite a long shot. We amassed some credit card debt. We had large car payments. To steal a line from Passion Pit, "we had taxes, we had bills, we had a lifestyle to fund." (That song makes me cry every damn time I hear it, but that's another issue.)

So, Adam sold his money-and-gas-guzzling toy, much to my dismay. I'm determinedly working at a mindless job to help pay the bills, and have been for quite some time, while also working hard to find a more lucrative and stimulating position. He busts his butt at work. And now we're making real cost-cutting steps. Perhaps we should have done so two years ago - indeed, I know we should have, but lifestyle changes are never easy and often need to be done incrementally. And also, I let go of access to our bank account in the vain hope that by not looking, it wouldn't hurt. Yes, very ostrich of me.

So this year, when I updated my much-in-need-of-not-sucking iPhone, I downloaded the Mint.com app and decided to make some serious changes. While none of what follows is ground-breaking, I felt it was important to share. These are the steps we've taken or are in the process of taking:

1. Assess the damage. 
Mint makes this extremely easy - and puts it out there in stark black and white (or green, as the case may be). With a quick set-up, it parses out where your money goes, when it comes it, and kind of asks you what the fuck you were thinking when you spent $150 at a fancy French restaurant (it doesn't care that it was a friend's birthday), you plebeian moron. We were able to see where our money was going - and it's kind of  shock to see those little bits add up here and there. Over forty dollars a week at fast food joints because we were too lazy to hit the grocery store? Yikes. Almost $700 in groceries in one month? Were we eating gold-plated manatee braised in Dom Perignon? Seriously, WTF? Hemorrhaging money left-and right isn't exactly the right analogy; it was more the thousand tiny cuts that were getting us.

2. Budget.*
We always have known our large outstanding bills. When we tabulated them, we were certain we were well within our means - and we were, if that's all we spent. But our tendency to grab Chinese instead of making something we already had, or taking up every offer a friend extended for a bite or a drink out at the local bar was killing us slowly and silently. Being able to say "Oh, our monthly bills are only $XXXX," even when we attempted to factor in lifestyle expenses, was way off the mark.

Plus, we were able to easily decide how much we actually want to spend on our bills so we could take the necessary steps to...

3. Rein it the fuck in.
Being able to assess where we've been going wrong, and setting budgets, also highlighted where bills were way higher than necessary. And it was shockingly easy to cut some luxury.

Adam called AT&T, and in one afternoon was able to trim a huge percentage off our cable, Internet, and cell phone bills. All he did was threaten to permanently downgrade our service, and now we're getting the same stuff for free for three months, whereupon he'll call and cut it out anyway. We looked hard and long at our cell plans and determined we really didn't need the huge package of talking minutes, but I had the tendency to over-use my data. With some tweaks, we're now carrying four phones (my parents are on our plan), including two smart phones, for half of what we were previously paying. It pays big to just ask for a better deal. And be polite about it.

Next, he rolled our outstanding credit card debt into a low-interest credit loan through the bank with whom he has the card. (I say "we" even though he's the current solo cardholder. We share debt just like we share everything else.) We're paying less than we were directly to the credit company before, and we've set a solid budget on paying it off so that within the year, we will be free of that debt. Then, the plan is to throw that money at my (ridiculously high interest) student loan, and finally at my (ridiculously low interest) car payment. With this, we will be debt-free in 24 months.

4. Finally paying ourselves.
We were in pretty tight circumstances at times in the past few years. We never went hungry, we never did anything unhealthy to get by. We did skate on a few payments here and there, pay a bill or two late, use the cushion I had built in to my Mini payments to skip a month or two for sending a check to BMW. We set it up from the beginning that the utilities are in my name, while the credit card is in Adam's. This way, his credit remains strong, and I can jump onto his card when it's paid off. Ta-da! instant better credit, just add water... and a shitton of money, time, and effort.

In this time, with his lay-off from a more reliable job and my "fuck you" to my last truly gainful employer, we hadn't been able to save. Anything. I rinsed my Roth IRA last year, we amassed that credit card debt, and have been making significant, if some what tardy, lifestyle changes. We also rescued two dogs, moved, and had giant changes to our personal lives. Sometimes, you can't plan for expenses regardless of what you do. And that's terrifying.

By significantly trimming our expenses, we've managed to budget out a serious savings plan in a way we never did before. Financial gurus suggest having a rainy day fun that would allows you to maintain your lifestyle with no income for a minimum of three months. Our savings account contained a few mothballs and some coins from our trip to London. Now, we're set up to put away a serious chunk of money every month and still stay under budget.

*5a. Plan like a mo' fo' (or, Budget, the Saga Continues).
I am not, as one might say, particularly domestic. I don't revel in laundry, I loathe vacuuming. Martha Stewart is my nemesis (right up there with that Paula Deen and Rachel Ray. Maybe I just hate the Food Network, I don't know). This is good on one hand, as I rarely spend a lot on cleaning products (ha ha). On the other hand, it means that every day I ask the existentially-interminable "what are we going to make for dinner?!" And usually, that means "reservations." Blargh. Stupid. Also, the delivery men know that our vociferous and assertive dogs are not to be feared (in the least). Not to cast aspersions on the kid, but I don't want that kind of familiarity with the driver from Campion's Pizza any more.

These days, it's plan, plan, plan. Weekly shopping - with coupons if I can grab them! - is always required. We mete out funds for one reasonably priced night out each week. We're not nuts, and we're not unreasonable; we both know that we are both social butterflies and we would likely end up losing our minds if we stayed in seven nights a week. But we also don't need to go out three or four nights of those seven. (Friends, if we turn down an invite, it's because we burned our night out, not because we don't love you.)

We rent my parents' old house, and it's a 40 year-old raised ranch. It was built in a time when oil was cheap, men wore polyester, and women were only just barely making cracks in that glass ceiling. This house oozes heat. We spent way more in heating fuel this year than I find remotely acceptable, and as all our friends know, we keep the place arctic (60°F or below at all times this winter, except that time we had Adam's grandmother over; I'm not cruel). We're planing to re-insulate the attic this spring, which is a lot to pay upfront, but definitely worth it if we don't have to hand whole paychecks over to the oil guy next winter. And it will cost less than an oil fill-up! We're also considering installing better water-heating equipment and running a leak test to see if/where we need to shore up additional leaks. Adam's brother is an exceptional HVAC engineer, so we have a hook-up there.

5b. DIYing to Do Better.
I've also scrounged the Internet (er... or just Pinterest, because it's like crafty crack), for money saving tips. For example, this afternoon, I made my own laundry detergent. It cost $1.08 to make a gallon of the stuff, and that's only because I bought hypo-allergenic soap. I pay $8 for less Arm & Hammer, and burn through it like it's my job.

We now cook non-stop, and in large quantities so we can get at least two meals out of it. And we buy stuff that freezes well, last a long time, or can spread itself thin. With this, I'm even able to support my expensive baking habit.

We've been unable to afford decent window treatments or decor since we moved. That shit is expensive. Even decor fabrics are steeply priced ($30/yard? Yeah, not with my paycheck) at JO-Ann Fabric. So I'm cobbling together some nifty cheap fabric and ingenuity, and hoping it'll do the trick. Maybe I'll post about that someday.

I'm in the process of getting together a garden, and while that is a decent chunk of change up front, it will afford us fresh, practically free produce, and also cut back on our carbon footprint, ensure we HAVE to plan meals with the veggies, and also, I miss playing in the dirt. Farming (on whatever scale) is cheaper than therapy and you get vegetables (or goat milk!). We just have to ensure that the raised-bed is protected, since Simon graciously un-potted my entire container garden last summer. Nary a pepper survived. Not this time, poopiedog!


If anyone is curious, yes, I do still own my Mini. We need a car for transporting the dogs that's reliable and practical. While the Mini isn't always the most practical, it does fit our needs. And, moreover, while it's a considerable amount of equity, selling it would restrict us at this point to questionably reliable cars. Not that these choices have to be defended, but it is what it is. 


I don't know for certain if we will be able to fully commit to these changes, but thus far, we've been doing really well. I'm certain that my reluctance to address our finances together, in part to avoid uncomfortable or hurtful "discussions," was a failing of epic proportions on my part. We're in this together, and at some point, we'd like to be that together in the legal sense. (The truth is, it's hard to fund a wedding with the three whole figures in your checking account.) I'm vigilant and unyielding and have started making sure those discussions do happen, because they have to happen, (especially when your beloved's favorite hobby is tweaking his vehicle, which tends to be not-so-inexpensive), and when they do, you really know you're in it together.

Also, I need to write more. I'm damned rusty.

In Defense of the Renaissance (Wo)Man

A few weeks ago, an old associate of my father's invited me in to his very prestigious, very successful advertising and marketing firm for a chat. I intrinsically understood that this was a casual chat, but I couldn't help but hope that a job in some form might miraculously materialize out of this meeting. I went in with high hopes in spite of myself and the downward trajectory that my job hunt and self-esteem have been on lately.

When I sat down to chat with the man, a Steve Jobsish clone in his mid-fifties who invited me to have a cup of coffee while he selected a 5-hour Energy for himself, I quickly realized that the conversation was not going to go the way I was hoping.

Don't get me wrong, he was a lovely person, amiable, cheerful, funny. And he had nothing but glowing compliments for my father. For me, however, he had ADVICE. This wasn't a job interview; this was rapid mentoring coupled with just a splash of showing off. I do believe he was genuinely interested in helping me work toward gainful and sustained employment, but what he had to say was so depressing, I barely made it out of there without crying.

"Specialize," he said over and over and over again. "Position yourself to be an authority on something. In this location, that's insurance. Go home. Do research. Start a blog on insurance - you can choose the focus - and write about it. Read about it. Comment on it. In six months, you'll have a job at one of the insurance companies. I guarantee it."

He perused my resume. He came back again and again to the fact that I never specialized. "If you're good at writing, run with that. Good writers are always in demand. If you focus on, say, property and casualty insurance, you'll always have a job. Money isn't a bad thing, Courtney. Once you make a good living, you can do anything you want to help others."

It was unnerving how well he read me, but then, my MA in human rights isn't exactly an ideological smoke screen. Knowing this, he pegged me pretty quickly, but it still threw me for a loop. We talked for over an hour and he gave me a tour of his extremely cool offices. He wished me and my family well. I went back to work, and when I got home that night, I shut myself away and cried for two days. It was the day before my 29th birthday.

Honest to Dog, I cannot think of any one thing I'd loathe writing about for the rest of my life more than fucking insurance. I tried to follow his advice, I really did. I spent nights hunched over my antiquated laptop, trying to digest the legalese and handle the mental equivalent of eating a fistful of Saltines at once. I started a blog on insurance. I got as far a choosing a witty title (Five for One) which is from The Tempest, and screwing around with possible layouts that announced "ALL YE WHO ENTER: THERE BE INSURANCE YONDER." It was gray.

I've spent the last three weeks in a pretty serious depression. Planning my gardens for the coming planting season has provided some respite, but little solace when I have to putter in to "work" again, a nameless temp, mindlessly loading meaningless junk mail orders into a nearly anachronistic computer system. The irony of this would be downright comedic only if every time I went to laugh, a strangled sob didn't come out instead. A veritable stranger offers me sound and valid advice, and all I can do is mourn the soul of a person I once thought I was.

The truth is, though, that there's nothing inherently wrong with being interested in a vast array of pursuits. Indeed, were I alive a mere 150 years ago, and male, and wealthy, I'd be pretty fucking fancy. So essentially, I wouldn't be me then, either, but George Elliot made it work for her, and that's really saying something, even if I did find Middlemarch to be an interminable slog.

There was a time when "Renaissance Man" was a compliment. When possessing capability and alacrity in various fields was seen as not only impressive, but aspirational. When being your own accompanist was important, particularly when making your own music. And when it all boils down, that's what my real issue is; I know the songs everyone else is singing, I am just listening to an entirely different genre.

And we are told the lie from childhood that independence of mind and spirit have a place in this world. But I've been shown time and again that what people really want are clones of their own egos, mirror minions of their own passions so that their closely held beliefs remain unchallenged. (How the fuck else do you explain Glen Beck?) And perhaps my job as a temp is perfect training for that, since it is slowly beating anything resembling thinking out of my person, one order at a time.

But I also know that I will never really change. I am too curious, too interested, to emotional to relinquish the independence in me that is entwined with those passions which flood my brain on occasion. I'm too offended by the injustice of existence and the willful ignorance of mankind to give up. And perhaps that means that my entire life will be one fraught with struggle, both internal and external, but at least I can say that I tried it all. Almost.

On the Go

I finally got a new phone. My old iPhone 4 was in shambles. I'd never updated the operating system because my computer is ancient and is too old for the newer versions of iTunes. I dropped that thing so many times that after replacement screen three, Adam patently refused to work on it again. For nearly a year, I've used a phone with a shattered screen, spotty service, and outdated software. And it worked!

But, a few nights ago, I treated myself to an upgrade to an iPhone 4S and have had my nose to the screen ever since. It's a wonderful time-suck, and I've spent way too much time downloading new apps to aid me in my daily quest for a real job and a modicum of sanity. It also has a fancy Blogger app that now allows me to write on the go. I hope to post more often as a result of having it, but I'm not making any promises.

On Account of Excessive Excitement

I got my 1,000,000th rejection email from one of the big, local insurance companies today. They really should have a giveaway associated with that, but seeing as they're mostly technically competitors, I can't see them going halfsies (halvsies?) on anything like that. The giveaway could be really exciting, like "Free Yugo with Your 1,000,000 Rejection!" or "Free Health Insurance for a Week with your One Millionth Rejection!" The alternative, of course, would be to just give me a fucking job, but whatever. Sweepstakes are apparently NOT FOR EVERYONE. ("Everyone" likely being all of us looking for jobs right now.)

As I have noted before, I worry my resume comes across a bit... scattered. That's not to say I'm not capable of and actually very good at (thankyouverymuch) everything on that little document, because frankly, I am, but I know that specialization is the name of the game these days.

So could someone explain to me why in the name of FUCK I have a liberal arts education? (Not to mention an MA that people glance at and have no idea what to do with.) Wasn't that supposed to be the launching pad for a well-rounded individual? Or at least someone who can form a complete thought about ... anything? Anything at all? Well, fuck it. I'm proud of my education. And I'm proud of my eclectic background.

So what if some insurance company (or any of them, really) doesn't want to hire me? My sister-in-law works for one and I swear to Dog she goes home every night and prays to get laid off. I keep telling myself that having the abilities to trim a goat's hoof and turn a phrase in the name of marketing is interesting. It shows gumption and curiosity and a breadth of experience most people don't have. Maybe I should add "jumped out of a plane that one time" to it. I could scare the pants right off of those insurance stiffs.

But the truth is, every rejection sucks. Every. Single. One. One of my closest friends has gumption and curiosity and breadth of experience -- and she's taking a career-making position in Kenya. I can't fathom the awesomeness of that. And I'm elated for her.

And I can't even describe how much of a foil that is to my own shortcomings. Her move isn't about me, it's about her doing good things in the world and killing it at work and being the amazing person that I love.

This blog, however, IS about me. So, there's that. And with that in mind, I've realized that with her news and well-earned successes, my job hunt, the rejections, my resentment toward my own situation... are starting to consume me. I don't just dislike the job I do, I actively hold back tears of rage at my desk and say silent prayers to a God I don't believe in that no one notices. And I can't tell anymore if it's frustration at my stunted search for a job or good, old-fashioned self loathing that brings the migraine boil of emotion repressed, but it comes.

Perhaps it's just all the excitement that I bring.

And since I've been listening to The Band compulsively lately, this seemed appropriate (even though I'm 99% sure it's a song about King Lear).

Failure Like the Back of My Hand

If  you look at this picture, you might assume that this past weekend I got into some crazy bar fight, or I worked at the farm, or possibly slipped dramatically on my way into work today and cut my knuckles on ice or the odd stack of junk mail. None of that is the case.

On Friday night, I gesticulated wildly into an overhead hanging light fixture at a dive bar. I'm 99% sure I have hepatitis now. (No worries, I was only using my liver under the powers of evil, anyway.)

Today, as I typed away at my junk mail orders, staring down at my nearly anachronistic keyboard and my extremely rough digits, I realized that the idiomatic expression, "I know X like the back of my hand," has never made much sense to me. The backs of my hands have always been changing. I wouldn't know one if it slapped me.

A nail biter likely since long before birth, my hands and fingers have been a mutable, if not occasionally bloody, landscape for as long as I can remember. I nibble out of boredom, anxiety, and a tactile need that isn't simply oral, but that my fingers actually start to feel funny and large if I don't chew. Granted, that's the nerve endings of my cuticles and fingertips seeking familiar stimulation, but I always eventually return to chewing, even after months of hiatus. As a result, I have convinced myself that the unsanitary habit has made my immune system impervious to the common cold. I'm probably wrong.

My nail beds and cuticles are often raw, hangnail ridden blights on an otherwise haphazard individual. As I've mentioned before, I'm not exactly conscientious about moisturizing my skin; throughout my life I've allowed my hands to become so chapped as to cause my knuckles to crack and bleed during many a winter, until I capitulate to the inevitable and spend a week sleeping with old socks as mittens covering my Vaseline-slathered appendages. Vaseline apparently helps accelerate the shedding of old skin cells, essentially by killing them, and allowing the new cells to replace them. It's probably not a healthful practice, and I'll likely have the Dresden lace hands of a 90 year old by the time I'm 50 (minus the age spots because the skin won't be old enough for those to have appeared).

I have scars all over, and my hands are no exception. This is due to a determined lack of kinesthetic awareness. An old roommate told me that he was sure I suffered from a mild form of dyspraxia after a particularly comedic interaction with a few teacups and the sugar bowl. I was once accused - quite seriously - of being drunk on account of my habit of walking into tables... and walls. Bruises appear as if by magic on my person, standing out as red accents on my pale skin, slowly turning into bluish black glowers, and finally to that sickly yellow green of an injury I never really knew I received. Often, I won't even notice them until they've already almost gone.

I have scars from cats, from goats, from a particularly foul-tempered donkey, from trips, falls, overt enthusiasm, and downright stupidity. And I do scar easy. Aborted attempts to exit pools and cars and even my own damn house are written on my body. I have a scar on one of my toes from the age of twelve when I dropped my razor in the shower. There's one on my arm from a false sense of confidence regarding my whittling abilities at age ten. And there's one on my right knee from that time in Mrs. Haffner's fourth grade class when I was moving in my typically rapid and mindless fashion and managed to make a sizable gouge through my stirrup pants because my US History book was weighing down my safety scissors. A rounded pair of electric blue Fiskars is far more aggressive than you would think.

And of course, the pièce de résistance of my scars, the one I got falling down two stairs when trying to make the Tube. My ankle was so well broken from that piece of gawkish grace that I now have eight pins and a titanium plate in my right leg, courtesy of the National Health Service, and the London Underground, as a matter of course. And possibly Old Speckled Hen.

Today, I chewed my nails and stared at the little scabs on my fingers and thought about this blog. I made, not eight days ago, a serious commitment to writing every day, mostly as a mental exercise for my self, if not a small emotional one, as well. And I made it through four damned posts. I have excuses and explanations, of course, mostly of the time-related variety, but the fact of the matter is, I failed at the meager goal I set for myself. I didn't fail mindfully, but that foot slipped and down I went, with or without the help of Old Speckled Hen.

And today I was rejected from another job. This is a regular occurrence, at least weekly, and one that I should have adjusted to by now, but it is never quite normal. Rejection from a job, whether it was one I was passionately seeking or not, is a miserable experience, even if a brief one. And regardless of the phone interview I had this morning, the prospect of that position was tempered by the rejection from another. The accumulate and leave an ever-growing blemish on what I think I'm capable of.

But then, this one will fade, too, like all the others have. I've walked into that doorjamb so many times, I've lost count, and I sure as shit can't remember which of those doors I've tried. At least waving my hands at a bar to make a point only results a few scabs. And possibly a viral infection of the liver.