At Long Last

I updated all of my sidebars and goal progress... inching sloooowly. My Networth more or less stayed the same this month. I'm expecting some sizable dips coming up as I have to send in a $1,000 business school deposit, lots of travel to these schools to see which one I want to go to, and of course getting ready to cash in the Dog fund!! It's almost enough to keep my mind off the snow and freezing temperatures..... almost...

January Books I've Read: Winter-Hibernation Edition

I can’t believe we’re still in the month of January. For some reason (or a few: waiting on b-school responses, hasn’t been above freezing point for more than 20-minutes the entire month, a new boss at work whom I think is incompetent), this month has felt excruciating long. But there were plenty of opportunities to bury myself in a couple good books....

Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
I joined a book club this month (and hosted the first one, so my food expenses were a little higher than I’d planned) and really enjoyed discussing this book that was chosen. I’ve had In Defense of Food on my shelf for awhile, but this seemed more intriguing to me, and I already wrote about it once here: "The True Cost of a Dozen Eggs". The book is a kind of social history about how we eat and how we decide what is okay to eat and what we should eat (the referenced dilemma). What I took away was:

1. A better understanding of just how much corn is in our diet.
2. That dietary choice is essentially made for us by US industrial food system, agricultural policy and subsidies.
3. Organic is great, but sometimes "big organic" doesn't solve any of the problems inherent in our food system.
4. Our current food system makes it really hard for us to truly see all of the ecological and moral inputs.

At the end of the day, it also made me want to know a lot more about our public policy around agriculture. So, anyone who has any good recommendations on how I can learn more about the farm bill, pass them on!

Living a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant
The other book was a library selection which I picked up after realizing how poor my knowledge was of some of the holidays I’ve been celebrating now for two years (the Guy is Jewish – I am not). And yes, that’s Anita Diamant, author of the Red Tent, which seemed a little strange to me. But I suppose no stranger than my own divergent interests – writing, business, agriculture... I digress. This has been a fantastic read – SO easy for a non-Hebrew, unaccustomed, unfamiliar like myself. The style never feels pedantic or infantilizing in any way. I feel so much more confident just in experiencing these traditions and cultural norms. The way I think about it is now at least I know what I don’t know. Which is a great start. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in knowing more about the Jewish culture they’re experiencing, whether it’s personally or tangentially. It organizes beliefs, societal structures, customs and holidays in a way that’s easy to wrap your head around.

The World Atlas of Wine by Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson
This is one of those enormous coffee table books that I fell in love with one day browsing around Barnes and Noble. I suppose it’s meant to be a general wine-lover’s reference, but I’ve decided to read it cover to cover. I read a page a day while I’m having my morning coffee-and-oatmeal, based on the theory that you can become an expert on anything with consistent learning everyday (cued from another book on my bookshelf: Talent is Overrated). It makes me want to start my own winery… not a bad early morning daydream…


Next month’s book club selection is Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth & Happiness. Anything else I should be reading next month?

Money the Ultimate Motivator

I read recently in a women’s magazine (I think ELLE?) about a weight-loss strategy that’s truly hilarious. Apparently there’s a website out there where you can enter in your weight loss goal and a financial “wager” if you will. And if you don’t reach your goal – you have to relinquish that money. You can set it up so that the money goes to charity, or even more comical – an ex-boyfriend or an old enemy. I won’t be signing up anytime soon, but I guess if you’re desperate it must be a pretty effective strategy. And it just goes to show you, money really is the ultimate motivator.

Best Roommate Ever

Just to follow up on that post after moving in with the Guy….
We’re pretty happy :)

When Last Minute is a Good Thing...

My credit card payments are currently coming from my Bank of America checking account – certainly not an interest-producing machine there, by any means. So I have never really bothered with WHEN I paid my bills. I usually pay them at the end of the month when I do my usual scrub or whenever I think of it. But I realize that I AM relinquishing interest, no matter how miniscule, and it won’t cause me any grief to just schedule the payments the day before due. So that is my new commitment to me – paying my credit cards at the very last minute.

Giving for V-Day

For Valentine’s Day this year, I am going to propose to the Guy that instead of buying each other cheesy gifts, that we donate to a charity of our choice. I’ve donated to the Alzheimer’s Association in the past, and I’m considering that organization again. It might be nice to select an agricultural-based social enterprise start-up, since I’ve been reading a lot about those lately. So I started surfing around on charitynavigator.org and smartgivers.org – two great resources to evaluate where your dollars go furthest. My two additional honorable mentions are going to be FINCA International (a microlender dedicated to ending rural poverty) and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, both of which were rated very highly on Charity Navigator. Looking at these sites does make you think about what your giving principles are based on. I do believe in institutional fixes and organizations devoted to lasting change rather than band-aids or disaster-relief organizations (not that they don’t good work). But beyond that, I’m not sure if I know of any other great criteria for selection other than low administrative costs and the like. Does anyone have a more thoughtful process for who they allocate funds to for charitable giving?

Double YES....

In awe.

Also got the 10:22 pm call from Anonymous Caller, aka Dean of Admissions at the Stanford GSB last night....

I'm in.

And thus begins the really tough decision-making period....

YES....

I can't believe it. I got into Harvard Business School.... :)

Mountains of debt, here I come...

Life Insurance as an Investment Vehicle

While I was recently enjoying my GoogleReader batch of the latest pf blog updates, I had a realization that I don’t think I’ve read much of anything on life insurance. I have a 90 Life insurance policy with Northwestern Mutual – it’s whole insurance, which means that it provides coverage similar to term life insurance (you pay premiums to receive a death benefit), but it can also be used as an investment vehicle. The benefit is that it produces guaranteed cash value – right now the cash value is around $607 but I’m hoping that by the time I’m paying for my kid’s college or starting my own company, it will be a great resource of guaranteed funds when I need it, not dependent on performance of mutual funds or stock portfolios or anything else. Everything sounds good, and I like that I have something planned for that mid-term savings horizon, but I do wonder how I should compare that to just investing with e-trade. Perhaps I could make my money work harder, but I don’t know if I’ll be disciplined enough to invest for twenty-five years out, in just a regular account. Thoughts?

The Waiting Game

This is it. First Round Decision Week. This is the week when I find out if I get into business school, and my whole life will change. The next two years of my life could be decided by this Thursday. Kind of insane. I’m going to need lots of distractions this week.

The True Cost of a Dozen Eggs

I’m not generally a big organic buyer. I work for a big food manufacturer and am close enough to our operations that I haven’t been convinced that pesticides have been that pervasive or harmful in non-organic food. I have absorbed An Inconvenient Truth and I do my best, but I am no eco-evangelist of any kind. I want to buy sustainable, ethical products, and try when I think I can make a difference, but by and large, I’m frugal, and want to keep my food costs as low as possible.

I started to think about it a little differently after reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and hearing how government subsidies have turned our industrial food system on its head. The parts about corn-fed beef was pretty horrifying but what I thought was most powerful was the notion of true cost for food. While some products may be cheap, what’s the true cost of mass-producing and mass-transporting this food. What’s the true cost to our society – moral and economic? What’s the true cost to our healthcare system, after the impact of obesity and poor nutrition? What’s the true cost to our foreign policy, now that we’ve become utterly dependent on the cheap oil to fuel our cheap corn to fuel our cheap food across the supermarket?

Pollan’s arguments were insightful, but the main result of reading about the industrial food system, is that you realize that the price on the grocery tag doesn’t incorporate all of the costs. While you may not be paying those costs, you will most assuredly pay them later – through healthcare or taxes. His underlying premise is that you can’t just look away – you have to understand how the economics of the grocery store work:

“but this is what can happen to you when… you look. And what you see when you look is the cruelty – and blindness to cruelty – required to produce eggs that can be sold for seventy-nine cents a dozen” (Pollan)

I was in shock when I read about the egg operations for the majority of manufacturers – that they drive the animals to insanity and starvation, and factor into their business model a 10% premature death rate for the hens who can’t stand these conditions. If that’s the true cost, then I will be paying the premium from organic, sustainable eggs from now on.

Note, FruGal has another excellent post on a related topic: ethical shopping and being more aware of foul play in the grocery store supply chain)

The Eternal Question(s)

Wow, the economy is depressing, eh? I know, such an original post subject.

On the bright side, today I bought a pair of gorgeous Jimmy Choo patent leather pink flats, for $104. They originally retailed for $365, were marked down quite a bit, and then I had a gift card. I barely feel bad for exceeding my clothing budget this month. I'm not even a shoes kind of person and these shoes in particular were certainly a nonessential. But at that price tag, I couldn't resist the urge to answer the question: Really? Could those tiny pretty little things really be worth the exorbitant premium they exact? Who is this Jimmy character and why can he inspire such shopaholic passion in so many, in so many genres?

Starting to Think about Taxes...

I’m not even scheduling the appointment yet, but this is the time of year when I start to see those notices about 2008 tax forms, that I want to make sure I am thinking about everything I want to achieve before this tax year is up. Mainly, my stretch goal of maxing out the Roth. I am oh so envious of all you other pfb’s for whom this is not a stretch goal, but rather – the very first goal at the top of your lists! I realize this is THE personal finance no brainer, however, right now, given everything, I think my emergency fund is the most important expense. Also, I will admit to suffering from a little saver’s self-righteousness… I feel like I already do contribute hefty percentages of my income to my retirement savings, and when I’m only 24! Do I really need to max this out? Or so the small whiny voice in my head goes…

So until I file next month, I will start straightening myself out to see how much I will need to contribute to max it out. I do want to check back in on my charitable giving for 2008 and make sure I did everything I wanted to do. I definitely increased my giving over last year, which has been my unofficial goal when it comes to charitable giving. But I want to start thinking about more structured goals for 2009 – what are the right charities, etc? Thus far, it’s been more of whatever came along…

The Nitty Gritty Goals for 2009

I realized, after reading all of your goals over the past few weeks that I need to make some more substantive goals of my own to put some legs on my “almost-annual” 2009 goal. My best friend gave me a massage for Christmas, which I redeemed today…. And I developed all of these goals in that near-bliss catatonic state. Hopefully I’ll carry with me a little of that zen feeling every time I chip away at them each month.

2009 Annual Goal: Increase Net Worth to $46K ($7K increase)

Financial:
1 – Get to the full three-months of expenses in my emergency fund.
2 – Once we get a dog, transfer all automatic savings over to grad-school and wedding-funds, split evently – save $2000 in total towards these goals.
3 – Become a loan expert and secure a great loan package for grad school.
4 – Stretch: Max out 2008 Roth by April deadline

Non-Financial:
1 – Become more genuinely interested in others. (a la the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
2 – Finish one story this year. (I know this seems like a pretty lame goal, but I wanted to start small so I wouldn't be too intimidated to start. So, one story to conceive, draft, write, edit and complete!)

A Few Recipes to Kick Off the New Year

I recently uncovered that the Mayo Clinic’s website actually has FANTASTIC, no-fuss recipes. And for those that had those types of new year’s resolutions, they’re all from the Mediterranean diet. Yum, heart health! Even better, there are quite a few that are plenty frugal. I found a lot of recipes where I had everything in my pantry beyond the main ingredient, as was the case with the three recipes below – what I’m having for dinner this week:

Entrée: Honey Crusted Chicken (4 ingredients!)
Side: Green Beans with Red Pepper and Garlic
Dessert: Grilled Pineapple

Not so Extreme (but FREE!) Home Makeovers

When I got back home from all of the holiday traveling this year, I was so grateful to be back HOME, a home that felt like home. (Sadly, being in my parent’s house just feels strange at this point in my life.) And maybe I am subconsciously investing in my nest now that we’re in a recession, as the pundits claim, but I’d like to think I was just getting the ‘spring cleaning’ bug early this year.

Anyway, I made a couple of changes to how things are organized around here, and I have to say… it’s actually making me happier. So, I’ll list them here as idea-starters in case you get the bug too! I filed this post under time for money, because really, for a little bit of time spent organizing, you can ease yourself quite a bit of frustration and discontent, and save whatever money you would have spent self-soothing. If you have any other not-so-extreme-home-makeover-tips, please post them in the comments and I'll add them on later!

BATHROOM
1. Empty your mouthwash in a glass decanter instead of leaving it in the bottle. It’s pretty enough to set out by the sink and it reminds you to use it more often, in addition to the everyday glamour.
2. Remove everything from the bathroom counter that you don’t use daily – decluttering does wonders for my everyday happiness.

KITCHEN
3. Reorganize the pantry by meal occasion – a shelf for breakfast, a shelf for lunch/dinner, a shelf for baking, a shelf for spices. It makes the whole operation more efficient and saves you time when you’re looking for the oatmeal at 6 AM.
4. Create a healthy snack bowl (in and outside the fridge) with low-calorie/low-fat snacks in little sandwich bags. They’re perfectly portionable and a time-saver when you need to grab something on the go and don’t want it to be a candy bar and a Red Bull.
5. Take on the junk drawer (or mail tray) and dispose of all the junk. Better yet, create a cleaner “to-file” system for the day that it inevitably clutters itself up again.
6. Pile “stuff” in a bowl or tall clear vase for an everyday centerpiece. “Stuff” suggestions: wine corks, matchbooks, plain ball Christmas ornaments, pasta shapes, fruit, extra buttons, etc. etc.
7. Take the orange juice out of the Tropicana carton and place in a pretty glass pitcher. Ditto on the everyday glamour thing.

BEDROOM/LIVING ROOM
8. Post a poem (something that makes you smile) on a vanity/inside a drawer you see every day
9. Find little baskets to put inside drawers for organizations for things like scarves, socks, etc. (These are really cheap at Walgreens!)
10. Create a template for planning out the week ahead’s outfits to prevent the morning-of-closet-whine. Post on a French memo board in the closet or in an accessible drawer.
11. Give your spare-change coin bank more prominence. I moved ours from a back shelf to our desk and changed it to a clear container, hoping it will attract more loose coins this way.

The Mystique of Feminine Buying Power

After observing the crowds at the post-holiday sales, and doing a bit of scouring myself, I thought back to the fact I recently read in a Mintel report:

“Women represent 51% of the population but buy 80% of all products/services.”

The fact itself is certainly not all that shocking. All of the marketers and advertisers have certainly figured it out, and we see it reflected in commercials and malls all the time. The WHY behind this could be interesting. The reasons this statistic must be so are a mixture of ‘surface’ and ‘substance,’ as I see it. The surface reason is that women are - intentionally or unintentionally - often delegated the task of household management, and the majority of purchases (even in “men’s categories”) ultimately fall into the framework of keeping the household together and running smoothly. But I wonder if the reason of substance has something to do with psychological mindset.

This statistic actually contradicts the pop-psych principle that “men like to fix things” (i.e. just buy something to take care of it as quickly as possible), whereas “women like to maximize their solution” (i.e. not just “buy something,” but utilize all resources available to create the best possible solution, or buying the "best something.")

But perhaps, women are simply more likely to use shopping as therapy – and not just in the sense of buying some new shoes after a bad day at work – but as a salve to that urge to make things better. Even purchasing a service like an oil change is a disguised check for the to-do list of an accomplished modern-woman multi-tasker. What do you think? I feel a bit like Larry Summers toeing the waters here, so I would invite other perspectives. Are women more likely than men to rely on money to “smooth the edges of things” and create self-worth and comfort? Or should I gather my things and resign my post at a top university? :)

January Goals

I really do love the new year. Nothing makes you feel more hopeful than a fresh start, whether genuine or conjured.

My January Goals are caught up in this spirit of optimism, so let’s see if they fare better than my 2008 goals. The first two are tied in to me and the Guy’s new year’s resolution(s)…His: lose 8 pounds, Mine: lose 5 pounds and clean up my nails. (Really I should take a picture and upload it... it's downright disgusting. When I quit smoking, I replaced the oral fixation with my hands. I guess there are worse habits, but it's time for my hands to look like an adult's, not a teenager's.) Our before & after deadline is March 1st. Wish us luck!

Otherwise, I want to actually read my book club book, plus one more from the library. And since our doggie deadline of April 1st is nearing closer, I want to make sure I put the right amount in for January, with only three months left! (And finally, still trying to make up for the damage done in Argentina, by reducing my expenses to build back up my overall accounts.)

The last one is aggressive… we’ll call it the stretch goal.

__ Work out 5 days a week
__ Clean up my nails – plan for at least 3 manicures in my expenses!
__ Finish reading 2 books
__ Add $250 to Doggie Fund
__ Reduce Jan. Expenses by $150

Yes, at last, at last.

Wow is it ever good to have a fresh start… thus commences year 2 of personal finance blogging.

A New Year’s toast for 2009: for more wellbeing of all kinds, more optimism, more champagne, and more reunions with old and new friends.