The holiday falls within days of my parents’ wedding anniversary. Because I hate getting my mom a Mother’s Day present, so usually I send some flowers or take my folks out to a fancy dinner.

However this year, I found the perfect gift with which my mother should have no complaints. At Eastern Market there are several vendors selling pearl necklaces at really low prices. If they aren’t pearls, they are definitely carved shells with the beautiful natural lustre of nacre.

I found something really cute in a pastelly pink sort of color. It’s about 15″ and kind of elaborate, but still simple. It was amazingly only $25. They had huge 22″ strands that would have gone for thousands of dollars when I was a kid for like $30-50. Really pretty stuff too. There were colored pearls in black, rose pink, lavender, and peachy colors as well as traditional white-cream colors.

I hope my mom likes it. Since the stroke, dad doesn’t really eat much so I hate taking them out to a steakhouse like I used to do. Honestly a pretty necklace is a lot cheaper too.

ps- I am starting a new project today. I’m excited, but I’ll be driving all summer long at $4/gallon of gas. *sigh*

We had a visitor this weekend so we took her to the Library of Congress’ re-opened exhibit areas and then to Jaleo for tapas dinner on Saturday night. Then we went back to Napa 1015 for the totally awesome brunch Sunday morning. (Where they recognized me and boyfriend from a few weeks ago. Gratefully there were a lot more people there for brunch and I also got a friend to go there for dinner last week for her birthday and she said it was amazing. But I digress.)

Jaleo is by far the best place in DC I’ve been for tapas. La Tasca doesn’t even compare. And fortunately, Jaleo is in several locations around DC.

The food ranges from the very traditional Patatas Bravas, roasted potatoes with aioli and tomato sauce, to funkier stuff like artichoke hearts with grapefruit slices and olives. OMG was dinner delicious I am salivating just recalling the dinner.

We got 9 dishes total, 2 desserts, a glass of sherry and a bottle of wine. Damage was about $135 + tip. Dishes ranged in price from about $6-10 each and the wine was a Rioja for $34. This was dinner for 3 and way too much food, but we wanted to impress our guest and give her a lot of options for her first taste of Spanish food.

I got the artichoke hearts with grapefruit and olives, wild mushroom rice (basically a risotto), and cannelones with foiegras and pork. Boyfriend got Chorizo in crispy potato pastry, chicken croquettes, brussel sprouts with grapes, apples and apricots, there was mashed potato in cabbage leaf with goat cheese (’Trinxat’), sauteed cauliflower and Patatas Bravas.

Dessert was the warm chocolate birthday cake with with bergamot flavoring and yummy vanilla ice cream and Basque cake with semolina cream, cinnamon-vanilla sauce & ice milk, and a very nice sherry for the guest. Dessert was amazing. I highly recommend the chocolate cake if you go soon. It’s a seasonal special.

In retrospect, 9 dishes was too much for the three of us. Jaleo has huge portions. 2-3 is usually enough for a person. But I’ve been places where 3-4 is more the norm. (Thirsty Bear in San Francisco comes to mind, but I also remember their fish cheeks and beef with rosemary dishes. Yes. That good.)

They also have a wine shop near their Crystal City location. CRAP. I wish I knew this before. boyfriend and I had a really amazing wine there before that just knocked our socks off. But now I can’t remember what it was, else I would buy a case of it tomorrow. A rioja. Of course. What else would you have with tapas?

First off, if you are not allowed to share your salary. DON’T. It’s usually grounds for getting fired so check your employee handbook before you do it.

After reading Jim’s story on salary sharing, and the accompanying NY Times article, I’ll give you a Marxist economic analysis of why you should share your salary. (I’m joking about the Marxist part. I read Das Kapital in college with a prominent Marxist scholar and it cracks me up that he makes a ton of money as a socialist.)

The main thing in a free market economy is the value of information. It’s possible to have any kind of arbitrage simply because of a gap in information where the buyer has no knowledge of the seller’s cost.

In the case of salary, it’s a little different, but still the same. You are the seller of labor (a Marxist view of the world) and the buyer of labor is your employer. However, you are in a marketplace of labor providers (other job candidates) and you need to differentiate your labor on the basis of quality to command a better price. But you also have to price yourself within a reasonable range. Tools like Salary.com, salary surveys, published annual ranges, etc will help you set the range, the best way is honestly to talk to your peers in the field about what they make.

Like Jim, I work in IT consulting with the Federal government. (Of course I do. I live in DC!) I nearly kicked myself when I found out I should have asked my company for $100K. But honestly, I don’t think I can command that price. My friend who was advocating that kind of money could justify his asking price with the kind of skills he possesses. I don’t have that same skill set so I lowballed myself slightly, but not embarrassingly. It would have helped me set a better price had I known my friend was applying to the same company I was and discussed our strategies for our starting salary figures. I might have squeezed out another $5K from it, but I think I did just fine.

More than anything, knowing your current market value is the key. Sure, it’s good to know what the company is willing to pay. But you really have to know what you are worth as an individual provider of labor. If you are worth $50K and the company is only willing to pay $45K, then find another employer because there is someone out there who is willing to value you appropriately. I learned this the hard way while working technical support. Support jobs are bottom of the barrel and full of stress. But some companies pay better than others and are willing to promote people out of support work. I had to have a client toss a reality brickbat at my head and tell me that my skills were worth $20K-35K more than I was earning in support. And he was willing to pay me that!!!

The Man keeps us down by obscuring salary information. We’re usually not allowed to know what our peers make in the same job function. They hide things with unpublished pay grades. (Private companies around DC love ‘pay grades’. The government uses them and it seems like it’s fair to have grades till you find out that you don’t know what ranges they represent in the private sector because they are in no way correlated to the government’s published GSA pay grade schedules.) You have to guess if your grade is a managerial one and if you’re going to get a manager’s bonus or a regular employee bonus. (In my case, 10% vs $1500. Uh, that’s a huge difference at a $50K salary.) Shop job postings to see what places are willing to pay for jobs like yours or the jobs you want to have. Frequently there are ranges added to ads to entice candidates or give them a realistic view of what the employer will pay. Use it to your advantage.

I’m not a big advocate of having poor manners. Obviously be judicious in your sharing of a salary and whom you ask. Make sure you trust your friends when you share this information. I usually don’t discuss this sort of thing in-house with fellow employees. The one time I did, the guy had moved out of my department and received a promotion. I didn’t think it hurt to tell him because we were both pretty unhappy with our company. I also tend to discuss salary with my manager because I expect him/her to go to bat for me or help me get to my salary aspiration.

Transparency is key though. If you want to stick it to The Man, then share your salary. Find out what others make in your field and make sure you get yours!

There was an open house last weekend in my condominium building. I took the opportunity to stop by and peek inside. Turns out the realtor is a neighbor in the building. So we chatted for a while.

The unit available is a junior one-bedroom, but it’s a studio like mine. The bathroom isn’t very nice, but the kitchen was much nicer than mine. The cabinets went all the way to the ceiling, which mine don’t. It had a stainless steel backsplash and some other cool features, like newer applicances. But it was interesting since while they were newer, therefore nicer, they were just low-end stuff, just very functional.

It gave me some ideas about my apartment and what I might like to do next after the bathroom. The wish list is the back wall where I have water damage, put in a wall to make a junior one-bedroom, rip out the carpet and lay down some new flooring, re-do the kitchen.

Of course, if I keep it a rental, then all I have to do is fix the wall and update the current kitchen appliances. Looking at this unit available just re-confirmed my feelings on what needs to be done to sell the place vs. what I would like to have done.

Amelia is a new blogger and like many of us, she’s working on getting her financial house in order, as well as lose weight. Her blog is called Amelia’s Healthy Life. Because if you have enough money, you can buy a trainer’s time, or quit and focus on your health full-time. (I had a friend who did this and frankly, he’s really hot after losing 100lbs in 2 years.)

At any rate, I was kind sad to read she had a Mac N’ Cheese disaster at home. But hey, we’ve all been there and done that. I’ve botched many a cheese sauce. In fact, mine was grainy on Sunday night, but quite edible.

I’m a little disturbed though by the recipe used. It’s a lightened version of Alton Brown’s stove top recipe and I’m utterly confused why there’s so much butter and egg in it. If you’re putting a sauce on the noodles, don’t bother putting butter on them. It makes the sauce slide off. Even Alton Brown says not to do that.

Macaroni and cheese is a very easy pantry recipe. Shoot. I made it for dinner on Sunday because boyfriend and I were sitting around what the hell to eat and feeling lazy. Having watched an Alton Brown casserole program, I was kind of inspired to make homemade mac n’ cheese. There is only one trick to mac n’ cheese and one trick only.

MAKE A GOOD BECHAMEL SAUCE.

Bechamel sauce is a very basic French sauce. (Thank you very much Julia Child!) It’s also called a ‘white sauce’. It’s so freakin’ cheap to make, but also very easy to screw up. Got butter, flour, and milk? I bet you do.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan on medium to high heat till it’s foamy. (Alton Brown says that’s when the water burns off leaving only fat and milk solids.) Then drop in a teaspoon or two of flour and cook till it’s lightly browned. You want to coat each flour molecule with some fat, or else you get floury flavor, so don’t use too much flour. Err on the side of less if doing this without measuring. Gradually whisk in a cup of milk and cook till thickened. This is the tricky part because you will end up with a lumpy sauce if you do not whisk your little heart out. The best way is to take the pan off the heat and add a little milk at a time so the flour absorbs it all before adding more. Take care that the pan is not too hot when you do it. That’s what usually screws mine up.

To make a cheese sauce, add a 1/2-1 cup of sharp cheese like cheddar, but gruyere or another fondue cheese works just as well. Try a smoked gouda. Fog City Diner in SF makes it with smoked gouda, ham and peas. YUM. (ok, I admit, not low calorie)

I just don’t get why someone would use a egg white for this to save calories. Eggs are picky and will curdle if the heat’s not right. If you want less fat, just use less butter. The sauce will be thinner since you have to adjust down the flour as well, but at least you haven’t added a finicky egg.

The mac n’ cheese on Sunday night was about half a box of rotini from the pantry. 1 tsp of butter. 1/2 tsp of flour. 1/2 cup of low fat milk. A sprinkle of cayenne pepper. 1 c of grated sharp cheddar cheese. (Save some for the top)

I stuck it all in a casserole dish, sprinkled on the last of the cheese, and crushed a few Triscuits since I didn’t have bread crumbs. Baked it in the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes to re-warm the noodles and make the top a little crusty. It was enough for 3-4 servings. The leftovers were freshened up with an extra sprinkle of cheese before popping in the microwave.

Just as promised, they sent it to arrive 7-10 days after the event. I have a nice shiny $289.00 check burning a hole in my pocket. YAY!

I hate that there isn’t a convenient bank on my new commute, i.e. inside the building or around the corner. I guess I’ve been spoiled. There’s always been a easy place to do my banking the last 4 offices I’ve worked.

I could have done PayPal, but I didn’t want to pay the fee. Besides, I would have had to wait to transfer money out to my bank and then write a check from one account to another. By getting a check and putting it into my primary checking account, I get to make a transfer online from my checking account to my credit card (same bank). I just have to get the deposit in there.

I suppose I could have done it on Monday night, but it was raining cats and dogs and I didn’t want to leave the car in the dark and step around a ton of puddles. There is a particularly bad one in front the ATM I usually visit. Someone even lays down a board to step on.

I think I’m planning on hoarding cash for a bit since the construction starts later this week and should take about 10 days to complete.

Greetings and welcome! Thanks for reading my post on Napa 1015. It really was very delicious and I encourage everyone to come on down to H Street and give it a try.

A shoutout to Inked for making a real post out of it. I am truly honored.

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Thanks and welcome!

Well, I’m sure y’all all know by now, the Washington Capitals lost in sudden death overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-3 on Tuesday. It kind of sucked to watch that, but it was an exciting game nonetheless.

But the real kicker was in the morning at work. First, you have to understand that I work for a consulting firm. Second you have to understand what ‘being on the bench’ means and how it’s basically death for consultants. Being on the bench is when you’re not working on a client’s project. You’re not being productive and your billable hours goal for the year will be missed, so you want as little bench time as possible during the year.

Tuesday morning, I get to work, run get a little breakfast with some of my teammates, and return to find out that my project has come to an untimely end, a bit like CleverDude in the link above. Next thing I know, I’m laughing mildly hysterically at the situation and at the slight edge of panic in the room.

I find it damned ironic that I need to find a new engagement at work in a hurry because the day before, I was at an internal corporate event trying to network so I can line up the next gig in a few weeks at the planned close of my project. A friend of mine who’s been at the firm for almost a decade introduced me to someone who needs staff in the next 2 weeks. but I won’t be released till midsummer so that isn’t going to work for me.

But how much do things change in 24 hours. You can bet your bippy the first person I called after being axed in the morning was the one staffing up soon. Although I probably won’t end up on that particular project, I was hugely relieved to have a place to turn right away for help.

The moral of the story is to seize your opportunities to network, internally and externally. I can’t say that enough. It’s the reason I guess why us DC PF bloggers like to meet for happy hour. We try to do what we can for our network. It’s a bit of a quid pro quo though. I mean, if I’m willing to take someone’s resume and pass it along, then hopefully they would do the same for me, right?

Wow. The economy must be doing some funky things because my credit card interest rates are going DOWN. Meanwhile, my limits are going UP.

I reported that I have 11.99% APR debt right now, but the statement came in the mail recently and it’s actually at 11.24% APR. I’m thinking I can call them up and try to leverage it down to single digits.

If you haven’t called your companies yet to lower your rate, you might want to do that now since rates are dropping.

Contemplating things further, I think I can finance a bathroom remodel. Especially since the estimate I received is under $6K. Add on 10% for overruns, as most places advise, and it’s still slightly under the $6K mark.

Resources available:
1. The insurance company will pay me for the repairs ~$950.
2. My tax refund is ~$1400.
3. My stimulus payment is $600.
4. Liquidating my savings accounts ~$1300.
5. Cash I can raise from my next two paychecks, $1200.
6. Balance transfer at 1% APR till January 2009, $5000.

So that’s $10,450 in resources, not bad. Of course, I have debts to pay. And to get my apartment ready as a rental, I need to do a few more things to the plaster and the kitchen. The plaster work is only about $1000-1200. However kitchens are expensive and that’s what gives me pause. I’m not sure I should go as far as fixing the kitchen up really nice. Should I stick to something cut rate? Should I only update the kitchen appliances? At the moment, I am leaning towards replacing only the dishwasher.

Right now, in the aftermath of tax season, I think the only way I can take on all this cost is to sink it into my apartment as investment or improvement costs on a rental unit. Make it all a Schedule C line item.

Renting out my condo at market value will end up having negative cash flow for me each month unless I find a really sick cheap room for rent, which is possible in my neighborhood. I looked at a sublet for $575 a month last week. I could net about $300 in my pocket from positive monthly cash flow and put it towards debt repayment. Then I’d also be able to reduce my tax liability from a Schedule C net loss. But all of this makes me exceedingly uncomfortable. I am just not confident I can make it work out in my favor though.

I would have the hassle of finding a stable roommate situation and signing a lease. I’d have to move all my stuff out of my house and find storage for it. Having moved 7 times in 2 years during a transient period of my life, and recently reliving those times while filling out a security clearance form, I really hate the situation I’m in.

Of course, I could stay in the place. But then I’d want to remodel the kitchen, tear out the carpet and really spruce up the place.

At least I’ve freed up some resources and have a plan now.