Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

1. I have 22K in one retirement account.
2. I have another 4K in another retirement account.
3. I have 4K in two other retirement/investment accounts.
4. I own my condo and it has a new bathroom.
5. My car is paid off.
6. I have lots of available credit.
7. I can eat anywhere I want, money no object. (Not that I do.)
8. My closet of clothes is decently maintained. I can buy any clothing I want, money no object. (Not that I do.)
9. I still make regular charitable contributions on a monthly basis.
10. I am saving money by purchasing company stock at a discount.

These are small things. Very small things. But with the market the way it is, I try to ignore the dip in my net worth right now and focus on what has to get done at work. It’s the only way to weather the storm. Losing my job would be the last thing I need. (Not that there’s any danger of that, but I try to do my best whenever I can.)

I mean, I could make a complementary list of the downsides, but who needs being a Negative Nelly right now? I need encouragement, not discouragement.

So no matter how bad it gets, what do you tell yourself in your personal pep talk over finances?

For the first time in ages, I participated in a carnival. Not only did I submit, I got accepted! It feels like I got into college! Ok. That’s an exaggeration, but even so. It’s still nice to get accepted.

So here we go! The 159th Carnival of Personal Finance

A few that I liked:
Harvesting Dollars asks if Getting an MBA is worth it. A question I’ve asked myself a lot.

Single Guy Money pays off his debt and yet his credit score goes down. What gives?

Mighty Bargain Hunter finds a cashier who says that gas prices aren’t all that high since folks are still buying lottery tickets. HA! I scoff at that. Folks will keep on buying lottery tickets for fun. It’s when they stop buying it altogether that prices are high. And HELLO! We’re already there. Folks are trying to buy less gas.

Wow. I took a 6.88% drop in June.

The contractor cashed his check and the cash I was hoarding is all gone. The only saving grace is that I got paid at the end of the month and that artificially bumps up my cash holdings.

What shocks me quite a lot is that my retirement accounts are down by a lot. The last 2 market trading days at the end of quarter have been quite a mess with the spot price of oil going up to $140. Que sera sera. The best thing to do now is to keep on saving and wait till the market rebounds and experience the market rise.

Here’s to a lackluster 4th of July. I have a 3-day weekend and will NOT be taking advantage of it.

Most likely I will be cleaning the dust out of my condo and sleeping in a lot.

There might be a fireworks show if I can find a decent spot for viewing. A bike ride perhaps. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival for a day. Maybe even a minor league baseball game and blogmeet. (/me waves *Hi Ted!*)

If my friend is around, I’ll run over to her house to continue a quilt I’ve been making since March.

I have neither time nor money this year for a summer holiday. I went to a wedding earlier in May so I shall work like The Ant all summer. I ain’t no Grasshopper.

Someone pointed out a budget travel article to me sometime last year, but I didn’t care much for it, so I’m not going to link it here. But it got me to thinking about my last backpacking trip to Europe. This post is an old draft from October 2007. I’m just now getting around to finishing it up for you.

Now, first of all, somehow I scammed a friend into paying for my plane ticket from San Francisco to Paris about 10 years ago. It was a situation where her folks weren’t going to let her go without a companion so the money had to come from somewhere and by golly, this is how it was going to get done. It was her decision to do this, never my suggestion. She made the offer and I merely accepted.

I saved nearly all year for it since my friend called me sometime her final year of college and said she wanted to backpack in Europe for a month. Fine with me. I was living with roommates/family that were willing to let me pay a month’s rent late. I diligently paid down my credit cards, paid my student loans on time, and banked about $800 cash before I left.

To plan the trip we did several things.

1. We joined Hostelling International. That got us discounts across Europe at youth hostels. We used their pre-booking service to reserve rooms. This was absolutely essential in places like Paris, which are extremely popular during the summer months.

2. My friend had an ISIC card. It’s an international student ID card and helped her get cheaper admission to many museums. I was no longer a student, but I would let her pay for us and often the ticket taker would assume I had one too. When they didn’t, that was fine, I paid full price.

3. We did Eurail passes. To get the Youth price, you must be under 26. I think I was 24 at the time. I’m too old now so I might as well get the Adult 2nd class ticket these days. But yes, you can save quite a lot. We went from Paris to Madrid, to Barcelona, to Geneva, to Brussels, to Paris, to Munich to Geneva, back to Paris. Eurostar/Chunnel tickets were separate and I went to Brussels alone since I couldn’t afford the Chunnel. My friend left me alone to pick up another friend in London who couldn’t afford a full two weeks with us.

4. We ate really cheaply. We got breakfast at our hostel every morning without fail. We then bought fruit, snacks, bread, cheese and meat for lunch everyday. We only dined at restaurants at night. Since we weren’t big drinkers, we got vin du pays and shared it at the youth hostel, which is mighty entertaining. Take a pocketknife, bandanna, and canteen/water bottle. You will find them essential on your travels when it comes to dining.

5. We traveled light. I used a backpack that carried about 4,000 cu inches. It wasn’t very much, but that meant I kept my possessions to a minimum and my souvenir buying down. The only things I have from that trip are pictures and a pair of hiking boots because my regular sneakers just weren’t cutting the mustard. I spent a lot on them, and while they were worth it. I should have tried to buy better boots at home on sale. But I had no idea that running shoes were actually terrible for this sort of trip. Chalk this up to serious inexperience about hiking and traveling. Sneakers were ok in the past, but definitely not for this kind of trip.

6. Do your research to maximize your adventure! I got the Rick Steve’s Guide to Museums. I read it and was very specific about which museums I wanted to visit and gave them a priority. I studied art history and my friend has less of an interest in it, so she let me dictate a little of what to see. We had a really good time because Rick’s books are very informative, right down to a walking path through the museum that will take you efficiently past the major highlights. I kid you not. He will be specific about which staircase to take.

On a different trip to Italy, I used The Blue Guide to Rome. That was an extremely wonderful book. Don’t get too hung up on Let’s Go and Lonely Planet. If you are interested in a special location or topic, get the book and do the research since it will enhance your visit. Say if you are going on a wine trip in France, get a book that will teach you about the terroirs so you can figure out if you want to go to Burgundy or Bordeaux.

Rick Steves wrote a really great overview about guidebooks. Having used many of the guidebooks he’s listed. He is spot on with his descriptions of the books. Use this to help you decide between guidebooks. And I completely agree, get the latest copy you can. Absolutely borrow an old one from a friend, but when you are ready to go, get the latest copy for yourself, within 12 months of publication. Guidebooks are periodicals, and just like a magazine their information has time-value.

7. We didn’t have a crazy nightlife. Sure I went out on La Rambla in Barcelona and ended up dancing close to all night. I hit a bar or two with some Catalans I met in a Belgian youth hostel when I was by myself. But I didn’t pack a fancy outfit to wear clubbing and skipped all that entirely on this trip. Hanging out with the kids in the youth hostel was much more fun and conducive for conversation than a noisy club.

8. Work the network. Now that I’m older and have some extremely well-traveled friends, I can leverage those connections into couch surfing for a night or two in far flung locations. I haven’t taken advantage of it, but I have put people in touch with each other and had good reports about the outcome. Be prepared though to take a gift or some sort of thank you for the host.

I stayed with my pen pal’s parents when I stayed in Switzerland. I hadn’t written my pen pal a letter in 5 years. But out of curiosity, I called his parents’ house from Geneva out of the phone book and took a trip out to see them finally. It was really nice. I hope he gets to visit me in DC one day. I ended up sending a present later for his mother when I found out she likes to collect a special type of figurine.

9. Think about working on your trip. I haven’t done this, but I know someone who worked on his grandmother’s potato farm in Finland for part of the summer, prolonging his stay in Europe by a few weeks. I also had a friend who picked cantaloupes in Israel because he wanted to save money and travel longer on a trip around the world. Basically he was a migrant farmer, you know, the kind we try to keep out of the US. You do what you can if you want to keep traveling and since he was with a friend, he said it wasn’t too bad. Obviously, this route isn’t for everyone. But there are more formal work experiences you can arrange as well.

Ok, that’s about it. I hope it gives you some ideas for your next trip.

I just got finished reading Save Now or Die Trying by Mark Bruno and for the first time, I realized that there are different ways of reading a personal finance book.

1. Read a book from cover to cover. Just sit down and plow through the material like you were reading Marx in college. Dry and not too fun.

2. Read for research. You’ve got a question and you’re going to find the answer by looking up the subject in the index and reading the 3 pages it lists till you’ve got the answer.

3. Read with a calculator/spreadsheet and your last paystub in hand. You read something and you start calculating what numbers apply to you.

Obviously, we’ve all done these sorts of things before. Some books out there are meant to be read from cover to cover. Others are resource books that can sit on your shelf when you want to reference them. But then there are some books that lend themselves to an interactive experience. There are worksheets printed in them. They command you to take 10% of your gross income and put that aside annually in a savings account. I wholeheartedly believe that if you read a personal finance book slowly and deliberately with your paystub next to you, you’ll get a lot more out of it.

I started out using the paystub as a bookmark and realized I could open it up and really see where the money was going with a personal finance book to guide me through. I could see that I’m doing ok by saving 17% of my annual salary in a 401k account and a Healthcare Savings Account. I could manipulate numbers with a calculator to adjust and see other things happening to my money while absorbing the ideas the book.

Give it a try the next time you’ve got a personal finance book you are reading. I don’t promise an epiphany, but maybe some good insights will come your way.

Mark Bruno’s book, Save Now or Die Trying is a modern, up-to-the-minute book on retirement. It was published in 2007. The author has been covering the retirement industry for Crain’s Pensions and Investments for the last few years. As a newbie who learned everything on the job, he can relate to most of his Generation Y compatriots. His examples are the Jacks and Jills making their way in the world. He delves into their attitudes towards retirement and their fears and aspirations for the future, a lot like Suze Orman does, but his examples aren’t quite as two dimensional. None of us are, but I think the examples he’s picked out are more realistic than you’ll find in other personal finance books.

His title is a strong start and so is the first page. He’s out there to emphasize to today’s 20-somethings that no one is going to pay for their retirement. The only person responsible for it is YOU. I’m right behind him on that concept. Another concept he revisits over and over is that you can borrow a money for nearly everything, except retirement. A better thing to do is to ‘buy your retirement’ now, by saving for the future. I think that’s a great way of putting it.

There weren’t too many new things in this book overall, but a few key things really stuck out at me. 1. Roth IRA’s and Roth 401k’s. I did not know that regular 401k and Roth 401k contributions have a combined limit. I’ll have consider that as I revisit next year’s savings plan. 2. His online resource list has some new websites and resources I’ve never heard of before.

This book is a great gift for a new college grad or anyone under 30.

I realize that it’s summer, but last week, I was able to move my hocket seats to a better spot in the Verizon Center.

How did I do it? EASY!

I’ve got a friend who is leaving DC for California, who didn’t renew his seats. The new ticket rep I have has both of our accounts. I just rang him up and said ‘Bobby M has moved out of town. Can I have his seats? They are Section XYZ, Row G’. Sure enough, I got them! Okay… I did have to wait on hold while the rep checked with his manager to find out if it was ok to do the move before the special ‘Select A Seat’ event this week.

Don’t feel bad I took my friend’s tickets. Bobby’s seats were back in the pool of available seats because he didn’t renew them on time. He left for CA two weeks ago. I was merely capitalizing on the inside knowledge. Yes. Pun intended.

Next season: HOME ICE for 2 periods and a new hockey t-shirt!

(Kolzig put his house on the market so I’ll have to buy an Ovechkin shirt. I was going to buy one last year but I seriously thought he’d be leaving for another team in 2 years. Good for Leonsis for making a smart move.)

I just paid out $3084.00 to the contractor for my apartment. It’s done. It looks great.

Total cost was $5684.00. Not bad for a DC area bathroom remodel. They’re between $7K-12K for a low-end estimate. But since my bathroom is exceptionally tiny to fit in my studio, I saved some money by ripping out a tile backsplash around the room (but also spending $300 extra to remove some extra concrete under the tile). Paint is a lot cheaper than tile, plus you don’t have to wait extra for the grout to cure.

My contractor left me extra bath and floor tiles, just in case they cracked. He’s going to send a granite care sheet for the countertop. (Basically no ammonia cleaner and wipe up all acidic liquids right away.)

I saved money by telling my contractor about a special deal at Home Depot for a towel bar, toilet paper roll holder and handtowel and generally keeping my eye out for the things that I liked in particular so he would have an inkling for what to pick up for me. We sent a lot of pictures back and forth via email. It really does help to have a cameraphone sometimes, though it’s the most loathsome of all cellphone features.

Half of the construction was paid for by my tax refund, stimulus package payment and the insurance payout. I took out $5000 BT on a credit card, but I was able to payback $2000 right away. It’s put a dent in my finances psychologically more than anything else. I have definitely depleted my emergency fund and added a little to my credit cards over the same period.

Was it worth it? Well, if I add up my construction cost to my remaining mortgage amount, I’m slightly over my original purchase price. If I look around my bathroom, touch my fixtures, and stare into the mirror with really good lighting, I am satisfied. Pleased. Happy.

While I won’t recover all the cost of the remodel, I think it was a good idea. There were small little patches all over the place. Just little stuff, but it added up in a way that didn’t look good. I figure I’m more likely to get a premium for the bathroom now if I sell it because it looks intact and unified.

The only downside is still the dust everywhere, but at least now I can rearrange my closet more efficiently. (A lot of studios in DC have a walk through closet with the bathroom on the other end. I hate the layout, but it’s what it is.)

Que sera sera. I’ll just have to live with it now! muhahaha!

One of my more popular posts is about a former co-worker who lost everything in a rental fire on St. Patrick’s Day.

Well, insurance is back on deck as today’s topic because last evening there was a fire and boyfriend had to call 911 and knock on doors to make sure some neighbors got out of their houses. Four houses in a row were lost, possibly some pets as well.

Last night a boarding up crew was out. I could hear their saws ripping through plywood as I went to sleep. All I could think about when I saw the fire engines was if the Red Cross was out to help the residents and hoping the residents had some insurance coverage.

If you haven’t done so already, review your insurance policies for 2008. Did you buy anything new of high value in the past year? Did you have a life changing event? Are you renting? Can you buy more coverage? Is your car old enough to warrant a change in policy? What’s your commute like? Longer or shorter? Are you carpooling?

I feel particularly sad for the young woman who is clearly house-proud. She was out with her parents earlier this spring planting and re-mulching her front garden. She obviously just bought the place because she’s sprucing it up so much. I also feel pretty bad for the lady boyfriend rescued. She answered his knock on the door and he convinced her to get out. She was house- and petsitting. She saw the smoke through the wall and was looking for the cats when he knocked. He had to plead with her to leave the cats behind and make sure she was safe first. Then there’s the lady in another house with lots of little dogs to keep her company.

The Fire Department was still out there this morning to ensure the hotspots were out.

After the shooting in the neighborhood a few weeks ago, I think the neighbors are slightly shell-shocked today.