Category: Money

Friends, Humor, Money

Confess: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure?

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you enjoy something, you just enjoy it. No sense feeling guilty about it.”
― Cristina Moracho

Tell truths, minions, what is your guilty spending pleasure? Some friends I know always buy fresh flowers for their house, one loves going to the movies and is willing to splurge on weekly theatre tickets, a colleague I once had gets a professional blowdry a couple of times a month, one friend makes it a priority to go on a nice date with her partner every week. Mine is magazines. I don’t buy them every month, but when I’m feeling the need for some beauty therapy, a Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, or Tatler will do the trick.

On the flip side, what’s your guilty FREE pleasure? One of my brothers has managed, through birthday and holiday gifts to have a running subscription to XBox Live that he has never had to drop a dime on. One of my friends has an uncanny knack for finding left behind magazines and newspapers on the Tube that she reads instead of buying them (a trick I need to learn!), and yet another–a fitness and wellness queen–forgoes the gym to work out in London’s many parks. I give myself a manicure once a week, something I personally would never pay for, which helps me keep from picking at my nails and helps me feel more put together for the week.

What are yours? Spill!

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Education, Expat, Humor, Life, Money

Money Matters

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
― Epictetus

Welcome to money month on SDS. In keeping with my 101/1001 goals I’ll be keeping a spending diary and reporting in weekly on where my money goes so that you, faithful minions, will keep me honest. There will also be posts on the subjects of money, spending, and adjacent choices. I’m curious to read your thoughts and feedback.

We the Small Dog clan have an odd sort of problem. We aren’t bad with money, but we’ve always made just enough to not have to worry about it. Hurrah for you, check your privilege, you might respond–which would not be an unreasonable admonition–but it has had a curious side effect in that we have never prioritized saving as much as I think we should have. Between rent, groceries, cars and subsequently travel cards, etc., most of our money has always been spoken for the moment it arrives in our pockets. We’ve always had a bit extra…and instead of saving, we’ve typically spent it.

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There are some socioeconomic factors at work here. Jeff and I are millennials and like many of our generation we are paying off massive student loans. We were fortunate in that I had a job through the recession, during the worst of which we lived in a cheap university town, but it’s still had long term impact. Our savings from my first job financed our move to London but for several years we were paying over $1,000 a month towards student loans which was, in a word, backbreaking. We’ve also tended to prioritize personal goals over financial goals (one of the key insights that came out of an Edelman study looking into generational behavior) such as living in a major city abroad rather than buying a house and preferring purchasing experiences to stuff. We’re not extravagant, but the fact is that there have been times that we’ve overspent or life has been more expensive than anticipated (losses in the family requiring international travel, for instance).

We also live in one of the most expensive cities on earth. By choice. But nearly everything is more expensive for us than it would be most anywhere else. There are endless think pieces and reporting on Londoners moving further and further out from the city in order to afford rent. Expats without UK driver licenses, we need to live more centrally as we rely on public transportation to get around. Rent is, as a result, our biggest expense by far and followed closely by food. Would we like to own property someday? Sure, but it seems like a very faraway goal. It’s not outrageous for a good but basic house in a well connected part of the city to cost over £1m. For a central London home, a deposit of close to £100k is not atypical and, according to this piece in The Telegraph, if we were able to set aside £500 a month towards a down payment, we’d be able to save up to that…in about 16 years. Yikes.

Years back I made it a goal to put a specific sum (nowhere near the £500 mentioned above) in savings monthly and have mostly kept to it. But in six months of freelancing it has been hard to keep that up and some of those unexpected life incidents have periodically depleted or swallowed our savings over 7.5 years of marriage. We’re fortunate to have not really struggled thus far (written with the biggest knock-on-wood possible), but an unexpected side effect of this making of enough-to-get-by-comfortably-but-not-much-more has been an attitude of living in the moment, financially speaking, and not really thinking as much about the future as we should.

Which is why I’m making savings and budgeting a much bigger priority moving forward. This is part of my Year of Less, in that I want specifically to cut down on casual spending, consume less in general, and budget more closely. But overall, I want to start cultivating a saver’s mindset. It will be a shift, but as I start thinking about the second two thirds of our lives, it’s one I want and need to make.

What has had a significant impact on how you think about money–a book you read, an experience you had, a relationship you’ve been in or witnessed? What were the immediate effects? The long term ones? And how have the past few years changed (or cemented) your ideas about money? 

Britain, Children, Humor, London, Money

Of Kids and Dogs

“Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”
― Roald Dahl

Inspired by a comment chat with the lovely and thoughtful Grace from Culture Life, on one of the weekend links.

I’m turning 29 this year, Jeff is turning 30. In four months we’ll celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. Depending on who you ask we should have between 0 and 3 children by now. Some people are amazed we married as young as we did, some feel the need to caution us about our dwindling fertility.

Living in Britain means that the latter is a lot less common than when we lived in Utah when multiple people, including total strangers, would ask me about our reproductive plans every week, but it still happens simply because we’re married. It’s a natural progression in the social expectation. In Britain it’s not unusual to partner up but wait until you’re ready to have kids to marry, to have kids before marrying, or some other variation. It’s a lot more more live-and-let-live than the US is in a lot of ways, but family is a topic of conversation for a lot of people I know, particularly working women.

I’ve married a man who definitely wants kids, and who decided at the ripe old age of 23 that he definitely wants to have them with me. (Luckily for all concerned, he still does.) Which means that before we married we had a lot of frank talks on the subject and have maintained a pretty open dialog about the whole thing throughout our married life. One of the things we talk about the most lately is the financial realities of families for people like us. We also talk about about getting a dog.

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It sounds like I’m getting off topic here, but I promise I have a point.

A while back I was speaking to a whip smart agent who works at a major global sales firm. The woman is very nice and always well put together, and I enjoy working with her. She mentioned that she had a dog, a breed that I like, and I asked how she and her husband managed to look after a pet since Jeff and I were interested in having one down the line somewhere. It turned out that she has a dog sitter look after her pup. Every single work day. Her dog needed a nanny.

And lest you think I’m telling this story to make fun of her, I assure you, I’m not. It’s just a reality for a lot of pet owners. Pets take care and if you want a pet you either need to provide it yourself, or ensure someone else is on hand to do it when you can’t.

The parallel to children might seem unflattering towards the latter, but I think it’s a fair one. London is an obscenely expensive city and when I look at my colleagues and coworkers, there are only two options I see for how they manage it. They either 1) make enough money for one parent to stay–or more likely work from–home with the kid(s), meaning they make an awful lot, or 2) they have help. And to make the second option work, that usually requires plenty of money again to be able to afford said help!

Getting this job effectively doubled our income, which has already been an incredibly positive shift for us. I’m still freelancing on the side, but now if we’re smart, we can pay off our remaining student loans within two years. I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it is to say that, because debt (even obtained in a good cause) is terrifying. However, we’re still a few years away from even thinking seriously about having kids. And in that time, we estimate we’d have to double our income again to afford a child because even though we’re bringing in twice as much, it’s not even close to allow one of us to stay home past a maternity/paternity leave–much less afford a nanny five days a week.

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I know some people, in countries all around the world, who can afford to have and maintain a family on a single income. I know far, far more who can’t, and the trend is very much towards the latter from my generation. Wages have not kept up with cost of living and–in spite of what a lot of Boomers like to argue to the contrary–the evidence is that people my age are pretty frugal. Jeff and I sure as hell are! Like a lot of millennials, in spite of working hard (two jobs in my case) we’re swimming in debt which delays a lot of other financial considerations like buying property and cars (two things the American economy has depended on for half a century), investing…and having kids.

Spawning is a complicated topic for me. I’ve written several times about the fact that I’ve never felt a primal urge to have children like I know many women do. In fact, I dislike infants and babies intensely, silly or not childbirth actively frightens me, and human pregnancy looks to my eyes as if we should have tried one or two other evolutionary models before deciding on the one we’ve landed on. Add to the mix my slow and painful breakup with a religion that couches the female experience almost entirely in the language of motherhood, often (in my personal opinion) to the detriment of nearly all other possible life choices/realities for women, and you get some pretty conflicted views.

But financial issues conflict it even more. We won’t have our debt paid off until we’re in our early 30s, and I don’t want to have children in my late 30s. My mother did and even though it was the right choice for her (plus my little sister is pretty darn cute), it’s not an experience I want to repeat. Which means that our window to consider children shrinks every year. I’m personally fine with that, but I work hard to make sure Jeff and I are on the same page about it. We are. We literally cannot afford them.

And I don’t think we’re unusual. In fact, I think we’re the increasing norm.

Weigh in with your thoughts and experiences, kittens. I’m curious to hear them. 

Angst, Humor, Life, Money

Late Night Musings After a Trip to the Bank Instead of Yoga

“While I don’t believe that money guarantees happiness, I know it helps. Because money can buy you the freedom to live life 100% on your own terms.”
– Brian Tracy

I’m loathe to confess this, ducklings, but it’s the truth: I’m a walking cliche.  Money concerns have stressed me out over the past year and a half, and it’s probably made me a bit less good humored.  Winding down my first Real Live Grownup job is contributing somewhat to that stress.  I know it’s the right time to leave, J. has a signed contract to start a new position in mere months, we’re not going to starve and we’ve planned pretty wisely for it, but the truth is I’m a bit freaked out.

Getting our student loans for J.’s graduate degree and then immediately turning around and paying it to a school was a whiplash inducing experience: I’d never personally handled that much money in my life and in a matter of weeks it came and went.  Our usual expenses became much more tightly managed with those loan payments every month.  We’ve streamlined and budgeted and still almost every penny is spoken for each paycheck.  It’s a satisfactory but not very reassuring state.

Here’s the thing – we’re good with money.  Really!  I put 10% of each paycheck into savings without exception, I pay into my 401k and have made smart choices in managing it, we take care of our property for reselling when it becomes necessary, and we’re not extravagant.  J. and I both operate under the frugality now, security later mentality; we believe in delayed gratification.  But money and its management have gotten a lot more complex over the last few years and frankly I now understand why my parents (who were not wealthy but were very comfortable when I was growing up) were always talking about it and making financial adjustments and budgets.  It doesn’t matter how good you are with it, I think money is terrifying, especially when you don’t make much.

And I don’t.  Part of the reason I feel it’s the right time for me to try and move on is because I don’t think I’m paid enough – which feels weird to write.  I spent the first couple years of my job just thankful to have it, but I’ve watched duties and responsibilities add up without review of what those jobs are actually worth and it’s been frustrating.  The university doesn’t do merit based wage increases and the opportunities for raises are almost nonexistent.  My boss actually told me at my last annual review a month or so ago that if I were staying they probably would have had HR come in and complete an inquiry to see if my salary should be raised.   Which is nice to hear, but would have been nicer a year ago when my duties were upped significantly after Hennessy quit.  I know that I’ll probably start whatever job I take next at a much lower rate than what I currently have (which, I promise, is saying something), but I’ll be willing if I have the option of merit based raises, especially since I expect to start at a bottom rung wherever I get a foot in the door and am willing to work hard to move up.

I graduated just before the financial meltdown, I got a job literally just as Lehman Brothers collapsed and when faced with the pretty terrifying prospect of joining my friends and associates in parents’ basements or collecting unemployment, I chose safety and stayed where I was.  Probably longer than I should have, if I’m honest.  Nowadays I’m ready for a bit more risk.

A few financial boons have eased the nervousness somewhat as we plan our escape and next stage.  Dad found an old bond in my name that I can collect on (after completing the task of tracking down who holds it now since the companies and ownership have transferred quite a bit, especially since the Recession hit).  That baby is going straight towards loans and savings!  J. picks up odd jobs where he can and assisted writing an article for a business magazine which brought in some extra income.  We’re not starving – if I’m objective and rational we are a long ways off from it.

But.  If the last four years have taught me anything, watching my grandparents’ retirement vanish practically overnight with the financial collapse, feeling my financial obligations grown disproportionately to my income, working on the MP and seeing how hard hit some professions in particular have been by the new financial reality…it’s that I know exactly how quickly monetary security can go away.  I think I’ve become just a little more paranoid.

Weigh in, minions, and be honest!  Have financial concerns taken on a different hue to you because of external forces?  What have the past couple of years looked like for the Minion Coterie?  Do money and financial planning cause you stress, even when you’re good at it?  Am I unnecessarily paranoid – or is this worry common?  Talk to me, I’m really interested in a broad perspective here.

PS – As a further effort to cut expenses I just made my last want-based purchase for the entirety of 2013.  Hold me to it, minions, if I breathe a word about shopping in anything but hypothetical terms before Christmas, strike me down!

Humor, Life, Money

Le Sigh

“I don’t have pet peeves.  I have whole kennels of irritation.”
– Whoopi Goldberg

I have been home and back at work for only two days, but I am already in the tiniest, littlest, most miniscule fight with the cosmos.  It’s a small thing really: just our car needing $600 worth of repairs.  This is the same car that required $1500 this past September.  I’ve retaliated like a grownup – dramatically glaring at my bank account and (continuing to) refuse to unpack my suitcase, but for essentials, until the weekend.

All I can say, darlings, is that it’s a bloody good thing my vacation was so relaxing because if it had not been, Aunty C. might be in a bit of a strop.  And we wouldn’t want that, would we, universe?

Angst, Humor, Money

Murphy’s Freakin’ Law. Again!

“Frugality is misery in disguise.”
– Publilius Syrus

And, suddenly and as inconveniently as it always is, our car needs a $1500 repair.  The day before we fly out.

Seriously…plane tickets home for me, plane tickets for both of us to the East Coast, a week in a hotel in London while we hunt for a flat for J., and the food we haven’t even bought yet.  Come on, universe, just give us a break.

Thank Jupiter, Odin, and Quetzalcoatl we built up a decent pile of savings against the day of reckoning for grad school and can afford it.  Which pile is swiftly depleting.  Minions, send me your tips and tricks to spiff up Ramen, I’ll be living on it for the next six months!

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Humor, Money, School, Weekend

Weekend Wrap-up and Coming Week Countdown

“A host is like a general: calamities often reveal his genius.”
– Horace

There is very little that can crush the spirit of Small Dog, minions, but taking one’s car in to be serviced and having what one has long suspected confirmed as true – it needs new tires – is a spiritual and financial blow.  I handed over the credit card with clear eyes and teeth clenched.  It’s awfully hard to keep improving one’s savings when one’s car decides to be disagreeable.

And I absolutely did not mistake cyanide for baking powder. Enjoy!

And then, because my cup was not yet full, we had a couple of people visit from the parish yesterday.  I was just finishing up dicing cheeses and fruits to broil on french bread slices (Palm Sunday pretensions, kittens, because I was in no mood to cook a full meal) when they knocked.  I figured they wouldn’t be staying too long so I’d let the oven heat up while they visited.  Ten minutes later, I smelled burning and realized that I had left my pizza stone in the oven and that the oils in it were beginning to smoke.  The fire alarm went off.  All the windows had to be open.  I joked and laughed the whole thing off, but I was secretly mortified.

That pizza stone (which has given me no end of angst) is now at the bottom of the trash bin.  Cheap pieces of….

J. has only one more final and then we are done (free!) with his undergraduate degree!  Thursday and Friday are his graduation celebrations, and then we throw ourselves full time into grad school preparation – in spite of car related financial irritations.

How was your weekend, my loves?

Humor, Money, School

Top Score

“Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.”
– Ambrose Bierce

As J. and I contemplate and plot for grad school, by far the biggest question we have is, “How in Pluto’s dark depths are we going to pay for this?!”  The response is, of course, financial aid and debt.  Out of curiosity and as a way to start looking into loans, we decided to get our credit scores.

Both are excellent…but mine is four points higher!

C. – 1
J. – 0

Angst, Education, Humor, Money, University

Financial. Aid.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
~ Andy McIntyre

Woof, ducklings!  I thought the application process for J.’s grad school was grueling and soul destroying…but it is as nothing compared to working out how to pay for it!

Where will we live?
How much can we contribute ourselves?
How much, then, will we need in loans?
Federal, private, or both?
and most importantly…
Will we have to sell any kidneys and/or future children to pull this off?

We must write such moving personal statements that the entire selection committe will be moved to tears/frenzy/generosity. See photo for desired effect.

Last night we stayed up past 1am writing (another!) personal statement, this time for a scholarship application.  Let me just say here, that between J.’s experience and my editing, we have streamlined this sort of midnight activity to a science.  In fact reading the earliest application essays and comparing them to the last one we put together was hilarious – especially considering that earliest and probably least polished piece of work is the one that got him into the school we’re most excited about.  Who can fathom the ways of grad school selection committees?

Naturally staying up that late working on something that will only decide the course of our destiny is not conducive to stress free and happy Small Dogs.  I was frighteningly stressed and humorless about it all, I’m afraid, but J. seems to find this sort of angst in me amusing – granted I was especially klutzy last night and after midnight all sorts of incoherent things start coming out of my mouth, so maybe I’m better company than I thought.

So far this work is paying off, though.  J. has one fabulous scholarship offer to school A and now we’re just waiting to see what school B will throw at us (we’re dreadful tarts, you see, money buys our affections).  We’ve callously kicked schools C and D to the curb.

We’ll be making a final decision sometime in the near future.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I simply have to go breathe into a paper bag just thinking about it…

Holidays, Humor, Money

Money Honey

“Guys! Problem! I’m huge, I’m hurting people, and I’m misunderstood!”
“Just like the IRS!”
– The Fairly Odd Parents

Hello, darlings.  Did we all survive the late nights, vicious hangovers, and the guilt of (most likely) already breaking one or two resolutions?  Yes?  Excellent, sounds like you had a great holiday!

We went to a mocktail party at GS and GBIL’s place on New Year’s Eve and spent most of the weekend on the couch recuperating from late nights.  I was unaccountably grouchy, still riding the Birth Control roller coaster, but things look to be improving.  I’m old and tired at 24, pumpkins.

Now that we are emerging from the wreckage of a truly great holiday season, J. and I are taking stock.  Financially speaking this was a rough winter on us because we did Christmas and paid the (exorbitant, outrageous, soul-bleeding) fees for grad school applications all at the same time.  Higher Education is running a racket in this country – pay to apply, pay to get in, pay to register, fees, books, pay to graduate, pay to get copies of transcripts and/or diplomas, woof.  So we paid a small fortune to apply and, once we figure out where we’re going, we get to start the process of taking out loans to finance more school.

Ergo we’re filing taxes the moment that we can, got to build up our reserve again.  The goal is a healthy pile in our savings that we can live off of for the year J. is in his program.  That way we will only spend half of our lives and have to sell just one or two of our children to pay it off.  A good plan, n’est pas?