Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

One sentence: Inexpensive and extremely tasty vegetarian Chinese eats.

Admittedly, I didn’t eat vegetarian there. They were out of the veggie tempura I wanted so I went with Singapore Curry Noodles because good ones are hard to find on the east coast and I miss them from my lunch days in San Francisco.

I had the chicken satay appetizer and the noodles as the main course. The satay wasn’t the best. But my friend had the crispy tofu steak appetizer. They were nicely puffy and crispy. I loved them! My friend also had the General Tso’s Chicken, but with not-chicken ‘tofu’ chunks. But they were decidedly not tofu. Soy-based maybe, but not bean curd. They were fibrous and meaty, and mighty delicious. Very satisfying with some fresh steamed broccoli in a satisfying bright green color and deliciously crisp.

The noodles were good. The dish is made of very thin noodles, a little chicken, shrimp and egg, and lots of onion, but sadly it wasn’t quite as curry as I like them. That’s ok because it was only my Plan B order. The main thing is that this restaurant does vegetarian Chinese and the price for two appetizers and two entrees was about $23 excluding tip. Not too bad for a meal in Georgetown.

Though I am raving about the vegetarian food, they will make any of their dishes with meat or soy products. And if it’s not on the menu, just ask. We didn’t try asking about thousand layer tofu crisp, but I really miss that dish from Kowloon in San Francisco and I might actually ask for it next time.

ps- This place is a few doors down from The Rhino, THE PLACE in DC to watch the Red Sox. (My old G’town roomie was a BC grad and loved going to the Rhino to watch games.) You can’t miss it. They have a new BoSox banner hanging on M Street. Gotta love it!

My mom really liked her present. It was the best $25 present I’ve ever bought for her. She bounced around trying on her necklace and pulling outfits out of the closet to match.

What a relief! I always undergo stress when I’m picking out her presents.

The only downside is that my mom had to work all day at the store. She’s short staffed and working a full shift all day long.

You know, everyone tells you must add an extra 10% on top of your estimate on any construction project to get the final cost.

Of course, my bathroom remodel is going poorly and it’s sucking up my 10% overage.

There was some concrete under the tile in the bathroom that’s coming down. Unfortunately, to get an even surface on the wall, the concrete has to be removed. Don’t ask me why in the 1950’s they put up concrete halfway up the walls, but they did. All the extra labor hopefully will not be a huge amount more, but I have a feeling it will cost me another 20% on top of the estimate.

I wanted to have a special countertop cut for me so I can have a shelf over the toilet, just like I had in the original bathroom. However, it has a 10-day lead time for the order, which would mean I’d be out of my apartment for over almost 2 months. The contractor thinks he can get me a light grey granite countertop cut in the same shape out of scrap material from his usual granite supplier. It will only cost me $100 more but will take 3 days instead of 10. Is that worth it to me? You bet. It’s been over a month since I’ve slept at home and I’m cranky.

But things got a lot worse. The contractor had a drywall guy come in and they put in the ceiling piece early in the week. They came back the next day and the tub was full of water and the new piece was soaked. Apparently, there’s another leak coming from the unit above mine. ARGH.

I don’t know how all this is going to play out, but why do I feel like it’s going to cost me more money and time, no matter what happens?

Hate the data it contains.

As someone with a professed love for visual representations of data, I was looking at this post by real estate analyst Jonathan Miller at his real estate blog, The Matrix.

I didn’t have time to read his analysis, but scroll down and look at the maps of the US. Note the dates of the data (always important) and then look at what the maps show. I’m kind of amazed at what’s going on around the country. The data seems to have been gathered over the last 4 years, but the data display is interesting. It’s kind of frightening what’s expected of consumers trying to buy their own home in many metropolises. Did we have to piggyback our mortgages? In doing so, did we create a false demand pressure not truly representative of the price of the real estate? Of course we did, but the bubble markets in all the press have related correlated data to go with it in terms of foreclosure trends, etc. Just take a look!

As a rule, I eat meat daily and would never considering being a vegetarian. However, there are benefits to eating less meat for three reasons.

1. It’s better for your health. I started cutting back on red meat on the advice of a dermatologist. I had very bad acne in college and he told me to abstain from beef because of the synthetic hormones which might cause my acne to be worse. (Stress on ‘might’, but I had nothing to lose.) Plus there are added benefits to cutting out meats like lowering your fat intake and cholesterol counts.

2. It’s good for the wallet. Meat is expensive. Pound for pound, tofu is kind of expensive too if you get the organic stuff, but let’s face it, when you’re looking at entrees on a restaurant menu, the vegetarian options are always cheaper. As it is, at the Korean wholesale place, I get them for $1.50 a block (about 14 ozs).

3. It’s good for the environment. Most corn in the US is actually used as animal feed for the animals you like to eat most. I read somewhere that it takes like 16 lbs of grain to make 1 lb of beef. It also takes a lot of water and fertilizer to make 1 lb of grain, so any quantities of those inputs have to be multiplied by 16. You can reduce your carbon footprint quickly by cutting meat from your diet.

I’m not ever going to give up all meat unless my doctor says I have to. But I’ve been eating more meatless entrees, or halving the portion of meat I do eat. Consider trying a meatless meal once or twice a week. Track your grocery spending. You might find you’re saving money. (Just be mindful of your cheese intake. That kind of negates #1 and #3.)

I’m super excited. Even though I have to spend a lot of money on gas for my new engagement, I am excited because this office is insanely casual. There’s some manual work going on there and some of the staff wears jeans and *ugh* flip-flops. I hate flip-flops with a passion, but that is neither here nor there. The point is that the other consultants on my team tolerate jeans, sneakers and polo shirts.

I have noticed that most of my management chain are South Asian and tend to wear more formal attire, without going to a full-on suit. That sends me a signal, while it’s nice to be casual, don’t go TOO far.

While I don’t plan on wearing sneakers and jeans daily through the summer. It’s nice to know that I can and no one will get mad. I still plan on wearing a dress shirt and khakis Monday through Thursday, and jeans on Friday with dressy shoes. I have never felt that it was ok to wear sneakers on-site.

I’m so happy about all this. I was so fretful earlier when I first got this consulting job. The first client site was so formal and I felt a lot of pressure to upgrade my wardrobe and buy some suits. But now I don’t need them until I return to a formal client site. I can dry clean my suits and put them into storage till October. If I’m lucky, this gig will last a while and I won’t have to spend too much money. (Though I’m getting fat enough to warrant some new khakis again. Sigh. Must diet to avoid spending money.)

It’s a mess because of my bathroom remodel. But I soldier onward. Expect a net worth write up later this week.

Goal #1
Specific - Contribute to my 401k plan

While I am tempted to cut my contributions, I am holding steady. It’s kind of hard though. I really, really would like the extra cash right now to throw at the construction project.

Grade: Pass!

Goal #2
Specific - Reduce my credit card debt
Measurable - By 50% or $9,137 (rounded up to $10K)
Achievable - Monthly payments of $762

In April I cashed out a CD that was expiring and putting it towards this goal. But since I have a construction project going on, it’s making this difficult. What I have done is to shift around the interest rate on some of my debt, but in the process I’ve also taken on $5000 more. I am considering moving that to ‘Other Liabilities’ on my balance sheet/net worth like I did with my medical expenses so I can remain focused on my original goal. Not sure yet.

Grade: Fail. Miserable failure.

Goal #3
Specific - Reduce my credit card debt on my highest balance card ~$10K
Measurable - By 50%
Achievable - ~$450 a month

I did end up making a $800 payment in April. I also made an extra $250 payment to try and snowflake my debt. And then the bathroom disaster struck. I took out a $5K BT on this card, so I am no where near achieving this goal. However, I think it’s fair to say this goal needs a mid-year revision.

New Goal #3:
Specific - Reduce my credit card debt on my highest balance card ~$13K
Measurable - By 50%
Achievable - ~$825 a month

Grade: Fair - Neither a Pass, nor a Fail as the goal has to be altered.

I am a yarn junkie. I can admit this. I can also admit that I have restraint. It’s become abundantly clear to me that I have too much yarn. Showing my apartment to a new friend always makes me hesitate, not because I’m a mess, but because they will see my plastic storage tubs. The see-through ones have crafty supplies, i.e. lots and lots of yarn. Heck the opaque ones do too, crammed in with some rock climbing gear.

This year I made a promise to a new friend of mine (the girlfriend of an old friend) that I would take her to shop for special yarn for some projects. She had never been to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival before. It’s the largest in the US. Most of the hardcore yarn junkies I know attend on Saturday, but I had a prior commitment. Sunday was the best day for me. It would be less crazy and most of the good stuff will have been gone, thus limiting temptation. (Oh but there is always something, isn’t there?) It was a pretty great day for bringing us closer as friends.

As a multi-year attendee, I’m much more selective about what I buy and what intrigues me. I like to catch up a bit on yarn news and gossip. I was sad, yet glad, to hear that Jolene is the new proprietess at Cloverhill Yarns in Baltimore. It was one of the first places to pique my interest in handspinning. The previous owner was an older woman and I was glad to hear she sold to Jolene so she could retire. Good for her! Isn’t retirement what we’re all about?

The thing that tempted me most was a hand-carved ebony distaff for $45. A long-time vendor was going out of business for retirement and selling off all his wares. I was mighty, mighty tempted, but I hardly need such a lovely item. Gorgeous though it was. I simply do not use a drop spindle very much anymore so the distaff would basically be a really pretty stick, too valuable to use to bop someone on the head.

The last thing notable about this year was noticing a new yarn called 1855 Yarn from New Jersey. It came in pretty colors and handspun. I like to keep my eye out for new stuff, otherwise, I could go to MDSW every other year while I cut back on my craft spending.

And that was that. No really. I didn’t buy any yarn or fiber material whatsoever.

I spent nothing but money for gas and for lunch. I make a point of getting pit lamb BBQ at sheep and wool events because I don’t cook lamb at home. Round trip was about 1/4 tank and lunch was $10. I packed my own can of Coke for my morning caffeine kick.

I just wanted to add a post since I’ve been blogging about my yarn festival trips since I started this blog. I wouldn’t have wanted to skip it.

Get over it. If you don’t like it, don’t drive. I mean it. Gas was 99 cents back in the day. It’s pushing 4 bucks now. Ride public transport. Make different choices on work. I don’t blithely say this either. I mean it because it’s what I’m doing right now.

I was sitting on the bench with an opportunity to work near BWI airport north of DC staring me in the face. That’s a 90-minute drive from the far side of DC where I live. It’s also a crap-load of gas. Unfortunately I’m going to have to decline working this job. It’s a year long commitment and man, is it going to get old after a few months.

I’ll pass.

But these are the choices you make with work. I can’t afford to be too choosy, else I’ll end up flying to Indiana every week instead. But I think I can do better than the airport across town and find something closer. I had my fingers on a gig south of DC. It’s not metro accessible, and I would still be driving to suburban hell, but I suck up the ~$4/gal charge on gas since the job is close to my friend having a baby. I hope we can have lunch together all summer with her new bundle of joy.

The way I figure things, my car has at most a 15-gallon tank.

$3.65 per gallon
15 gallon tank
————-
$54.75 per tank
1 tank weekly for 50 weeks = $2737.50
Divide by 12 = $228.13 per month

That should be my budget for gas for May. Later in the summer, when gas goes up to $3.90, I should budget $243.75. At exactly $4.00 a gallon, I should budget $250.00 even.

In 2006, when my dad was ill and I was going home all the time, I spent $1416.03 on gas. I was able to tank up for free at my parents’ gas station. A year later I spent LESS, $1410.39. That’s about $117.50-118.00 per month for the last two years. During the first 3 months of 2008, I spent $107.00 a month on gas. Not that much less. My alternatives to driving still cost me quite a bit of money. Metrorail in DC cost me about ~$41.00 a month.

It stinks to have to budget an extra $100-135 a month on gas, but realistically, it’s not that much for my fuel-efficient Altima. There’s a reason why those gas guzzling SUV’s are being handed back in. $350/mo for a lease payment, on top of $60-80 bucks per tank of gas, that has got to suck.

I’m holding onto a lot of cash at the end of April. My net worth is going to look screwy I think.

For the most part, it’s totally artificial because I took out a $5K balance transfer on one my credit cards to cover the bathroom remodel. I wonder if I should hold back some of the cash reported because it’s in reserve for the construction.

At any rate, I’m still gathering numbers for net worth valuation for April. I always have to guess my mortgage numbers since one of the statements doesn’t come until after the month closes. (But usually the guess I make is pretty good, +/- $200)

Here’s to you Ben Bernanke for yet another Fed rate cut. I don’t think it’s really going to do anything for me at the moment. It’s likely working against me since I won’t be able to find a better paying interest rate on my emergency fund CD’s this summer. pooh.