The Perfect Storm

I haven’t been writing a lot lately. But suffice it to say, that along with everyone else, I hold my breath before I flip on CNN in the morning. What will have gone broke and broken in the night? Who knows. It’s hard to even stay engaged or to know what to do. It definitely is the “perfect storm” of investor anxiety. In the end, I am still resolute to stay still in the 401(k) plan I have as well as my Roth. So far, I haven’t seen anything get too far off… and I still have decades before I’d be retiring. So I’m staying put. But it’s still pretty satisfying to peruse advice and resources on fortifying your 401(k) – like this kit of articles from Forbes. Just a nice triple check to make sure you have the same piece of mind.

United Way Charitable Giving

This year I’m begrudgingly accepting the coordinator position for my company’s United Way campaign, and this morning was the rally. So this means I’ll be leading a giving campaign for 200+ people. The giving levels are pretty good, actually. As an incentive, they give you a free vacation day if you give at one of two levels:

The Love-Share Level – Give .7% of you income. For me this would be about $20 bucks deducted from each paycheck, or $40 a month. I think this might be a little out of my reach, right now.

The Goal-Share Level – Give 12% more than you gave last year, and also at least .5% of your income. Which for me, would be $12 out of my paycheck or $24 bucks a month.

This is certainly more doable. But I like the flexibility to give to other things throughout the year – my coworkers cancer research walk, the Alzheimer’s fund around Christmas in memory of my grandmother. More money to the Obama campaign in the next month, for sure. I don’t like having to say no to giving down the road. So I decided I would give $8 per paycheck, or $16 a month, for a total of around $200. And in the end, this is actually double what I gave last year, so I still feel good about increasing my giving levels as my income grows.

I have "Good" Credit

Thanks to the tip-off from Broke Grad Student, I finally found a way to get my credit score for free! Credit Karma . My Credit Score: 748 – that puts me in the 78th percentile of the national population and my credit would be described as “Good”. For being in my early twenties, I’m pretty satisfied with that!

Love Saturdays...

Ahh, i love saturdays. specifically nice end of summer / beginning of fall saturdays. woke up and ran to the farmers market with $4 in my pocket. Walked back with a large coffee, and an enormous heirloom tomato for my lunch with a dollar to spare. Went to an art sale to browse and then came back home to make an angel food cake and cut up strawberries to celebrate the Guy's return (he's been out of town for a few days). Now it's another three hours of essay writing for my b-school applications. FUN!

Life Updates - Argentina & Grad School Apps

We had a brain trust session last night - with myself, the Guy and the other couple we're going to Argentina with this Fall. And I think we have the perfect plan... it seems like we're on the same page with expenses too, which is nice. The only problem - most of the hotels we're trying to find are already booked. Guess it's a popular trip for November.... we'll keep trying! Here's the itinerary for lodging and entertainment:

Buenos Aires - renting an apartment, $200/night, split between 4 people
A ferry to Uruguay - $40
Boca Juniors soccer game - $100
Flight to Mendoza $200
Staying at a winery $150/night, split between 2 people
Trek into the Andes on a guided tour $250
Overnight bus to Iguazu Falls $120 (also saves a night at a hotel)
Hotel in Iguazu Falls - FREE, on Starwood points!

So there's some splurges and some skrimping. And that of course doesn't count all of the food and fine wine I'll be tasting throughout the week. Now all I have to do before I go is finish all of my business school essays and applications. ONE MONTH LEFT. Scary stuff!

Hungry Girl Recipe Review.

You might recall I got the Hungry Girl cookbook, and was determined to make a lot of recipes. I’m now weighing in on everything I made – there were definite winners and losers.

Winners:
Bake-tastic Butternut Squash Fries – First of all, amazing. They tasted just like fries. Better than fries, because there was so much more flavor. Crispy with lots of sea salt, they were good enough to serve to company. (I can't believe I just wrote that. Who has "company"? Excuse the 1950s reference.) And, so easy. You just cut up the squash in the shape of fries, bake lying flat for forty minutes at 425. The hardest part is wielding the knife on a big squash.

Crazy Good Turkey Taco Meatloaf – This one came out of the stove looking pretty sketchy. But it tasted awesome. I fixed this for the Guy – who doesn’t always trust my cooking – and he was impressed.

Loser:
Death by Chocolate Cupcakes – The whole gimmick here is that these were supposed to be 100-calorie cupcakes. They might have worked better as a very light sponge cake. As it was, the texture was just horrible – weird, somewhere between custard and chocolate angel food cake. If you’re going to spend 100 calories on something, so many more worthwhile indulgences.

Unmemorable:
Rockin Tuna Melt – With all of the substitutions, this was hardly a tuna melt. But a fine sandwich for those days when I get home late from work.
Choptastic Veggie Salad – Really good, just nothing too innovative.

I do enjoy Hungry Girl’s recipes usually since they are pretty down-to-earth. And you can be frugal about them. You don’t have to go buy crazy ingredients, and they all taste like real FOOD. Any other favorite Hungry Girl recipes I should try? Otherwise, I'm shelving this one for awhile.

What Does Henry Kravis Want? & What Can the WSJ Do for You?

Since grad school interviews are around the corner, I know I need to get back into reading the Wall Street Journal everyday again. A one-year subscription came with my GMAT course last year, and I loved it. Now I’m going to have to shell out $89 for the print subscription. If anyone else has faced a similar challenge of keeping up with business news and forcing yourself to stretch your interest and knowledge to a different level – what are good resources? Sometimes I find that checking an online website everyday is too easy to skip. A physical paper works for me. But if there are other blog type offerings that could accomplish the same thing, I’d love to be turned onto them!

Part of the reason I started this blog in the first place was to learn more about managing money and the investing world, so once I break down, I’m going to try to post commentary here on articles I think are good at helping the uninitiated absorb these issues. Starting with a NYT article yesterday: “What does Henry Kravis Want?” on the initial public offering of the private equity firm KKR. I liked it because it was a story, and recognized the businesses involved as such – entities run by real people, executives with varying motivations. I finally better understood what exactly a “leveraged buyout” looks like, and it made the drama of company control vs. steady financing seem more real. Happy Reading… (and imagining your life as one of these private equity big wigs, hobnobbing at the Olympics and above Central Park views, as I found myself daydreaming).

September Goals

___ Finish planning Argentina trip: The plan is to book remaining tours and travel out of my monthly budget and then use what I’ve been saving in my travel account for fun and food expenses once I leave.

___ Yoga everyday. I tried to cancel my yoga studio membership for the months leading up to my trip, but as it turns out, I have to give thirty days notice to cancel. Ouch for not reading the fine print. Since I haven’t been going to yoga the past few weeks with the anticipation that I’d be seeing that $95 monthly charge, I’m now going to go every single day through Sept. 17th, to take advantage of the waning weeks of membership. So far, so good.

___ Increase the amount of "no-spend days" from August. I picked up on the idea of “No Spend Days” from Always the Planner – the idea being to increase the number of days when you don’t spend a single cent on anything. Obviously doesn’t work if you’re just saving up for crazy splurge days, but in general I like the concept. It’s a nice reminder to yourself that you can do plenty and live fully not spending dollars. From now on, I’ll be tracking this along with my budget and see if I can ramp it up.

A First.

Guess it had to happen sometime. My networth went down for the first time since I started this blog. Only a $300 dip, less than 1%, and yet that itches a bit... On the plus side, retirement savings went up a bit (20 shares). And I feel more organized and on track, as mentally-prepared as ever. Guess that's enough :)

Have a lovely labor day.