I'm going to try to keep my March goals simple again, so I can actually get something done. It's not surprising that we need a little bit more to hang onto emotionally, to control on our own, of our own will... beyond all of the uncertainty and flimsiness of everything else going on around us now. So here goes - one financial goal, two writing goals and one fitness goal... We'll see how I do!
>Absorb $500 of my $1,000 business school tuition deposit in March expenses (by reductions in food, gifts, and clothing)
>Finish all content for my brother's advice-journal gift
>Do 30 min of Wii Fit 5 days/wk and Do 1 hr of Wii 2 days/wk
>Write 2 more pages of my story.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Nonfiction Kick Continues...
This month was....
Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
Subtitle: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
This was certainly interesting, and I found myself referencing some of the basic principles in conversation quite a bit in the past month. The basic concept as I already wrote about HERE is that of libertarian paternalism – the authors support freedom, but recognize that you can keep freedoms intact and still subtly encourage people to make better decisions by choosing defaults in a paternalistic way and ensuring that information is readily available and positioned carefully to support better decisions. I really enjoyed reading it, but some of the examples of nudges were pretty far-fetched: attaching pictures of houses next to your retirement savings (a shack for a 2% savings rate and a nice urban condo for 10% savings rate) just seem farcical.
The Organic Foods Sourcebook by Elaine Marie Lipson
It’s very easy to slip into thinking of organic as one more privileged principle of the much-accessoried yuppiedom I have uncomfortably begun inhabiting. On Saturdays, we go to Costco, on Sundays we read the Times, in our grocery cart, the strawberries and raisin bran have to be Organic. Reading the original hippie handbook was a reminder to myself of the health-oriented causes of the panic around pesticides and a government with no incentive to support people over multinational corporations. Reading it now, interdependency shone as the most important theme and principle behind the organic movement. You can’t tinker with one thing without unknowingly affecting others. And it also produced a question which I’ve now begun researching answers to – how long before I could feasibly eliminate or radically reduce the pesticide residues in my own body. There is a transitional period in organic farming – land must have been farmed with organic methods for three years before its produce can be certified organic. But what is that same transitional period for humans? If I converted to an all-organic diet now, how long would it be before my breast milk wouldn’t contaminate my children? Three years, or ten years? Or is it even possible? The notion of interdependency in general also rings true on some other events going on in the news right now... hmm, what could I be referring to?
Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
Subtitle: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
This was certainly interesting, and I found myself referencing some of the basic principles in conversation quite a bit in the past month. The basic concept as I already wrote about HERE is that of libertarian paternalism – the authors support freedom, but recognize that you can keep freedoms intact and still subtly encourage people to make better decisions by choosing defaults in a paternalistic way and ensuring that information is readily available and positioned carefully to support better decisions. I really enjoyed reading it, but some of the examples of nudges were pretty far-fetched: attaching pictures of houses next to your retirement savings (a shack for a 2% savings rate and a nice urban condo for 10% savings rate) just seem farcical.
The Organic Foods Sourcebook by Elaine Marie Lipson
It’s very easy to slip into thinking of organic as one more privileged principle of the much-accessoried yuppiedom I have uncomfortably begun inhabiting. On Saturdays, we go to Costco, on Sundays we read the Times, in our grocery cart, the strawberries and raisin bran have to be Organic. Reading the original hippie handbook was a reminder to myself of the health-oriented causes of the panic around pesticides and a government with no incentive to support people over multinational corporations. Reading it now, interdependency shone as the most important theme and principle behind the organic movement. You can’t tinker with one thing without unknowingly affecting others. And it also produced a question which I’ve now begun researching answers to – how long before I could feasibly eliminate or radically reduce the pesticide residues in my own body. There is a transitional period in organic farming – land must have been farmed with organic methods for three years before its produce can be certified organic. But what is that same transitional period for humans? If I converted to an all-organic diet now, how long would it be before my breast milk wouldn’t contaminate my children? Three years, or ten years? Or is it even possible? The notion of interdependency in general also rings true on some other events going on in the news right now... hmm, what could I be referring to?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
February Goals Recap
I actually managed to keep my goals this month! After this weekend visiting Boston coming up, I'm on track to go overbudget.... BUT at least I'm making some progress on my other goals:
Carpool to work at least 3x per week
- Check! For three weeks, I carpooled 4 times a week! And this week, I only made it once. But I will be out of town for two days, so not sure that counts...
Sell our old dresser on Craigs List
Check! Amazingly, someone finally took an interest in our vintage, antique, well-treasured, missing-a-knob dresser. Sold for $125! And now we can actually see the floor in our spare room!
Send Valentines to friends
Check! I sent only three Valentines, but they were all hand-written long notes that I think meant something special to the three gals that received them.
Reach out / make a date to hang out with someone new
Check! The Guy and I made a date to have dinner with a colleague from work and his wife... and they were so fun, we laughed our heads off all night, and went back to their home post-dinner to try out some hookah he had brought back from Turkey. Unexpected, and way cool.
Write two NEW pages of my story.
Half-check. I made some progress on my story and got just enough confidence to keep going on it. I want to carry this one over to next month, so I can actually dedicate more time to getting it in a presentable place. The Guy always complains because I never let him read my writing... not my fiction, not this blog, not my college thesis... so I am going to try to get it into a state where I will actually be comfortable handing it over...
Nothing like setting small goals to get that feeling of accomplishment someway or another...
Carpool to work at least 3x per week
- Check! For three weeks, I carpooled 4 times a week! And this week, I only made it once. But I will be out of town for two days, so not sure that counts...
Sell our old dresser on Craigs List
Check! Amazingly, someone finally took an interest in our vintage, antique, well-treasured, missing-a-knob dresser. Sold for $125! And now we can actually see the floor in our spare room!
Send Valentines to friends
Check! I sent only three Valentines, but they were all hand-written long notes that I think meant something special to the three gals that received them.
Reach out / make a date to hang out with someone new
Check! The Guy and I made a date to have dinner with a colleague from work and his wife... and they were so fun, we laughed our heads off all night, and went back to their home post-dinner to try out some hookah he had brought back from Turkey. Unexpected, and way cool.
Write two NEW pages of my story.
Half-check. I made some progress on my story and got just enough confidence to keep going on it. I want to carry this one over to next month, so I can actually dedicate more time to getting it in a presentable place. The Guy always complains because I never let him read my writing... not my fiction, not this blog, not my college thesis... so I am going to try to get it into a state where I will actually be comfortable handing it over...
Nothing like setting small goals to get that feeling of accomplishment someway or another...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Wigadoo my Spring Break, Please!
I love the idea of this website: Wigadoo is an online pledging site, only in the UK right now, although I think you can use some aspects from the US. The intent is essentially to reduce some of the risk of planning big (spendy) trips or outings with friends, because folks have pledged a certain amount to chip in, in advance. It also helps people think through the costs up front, so you don’t have the common phenomenon of folks signing up for plans only to reneg later when they realize they can’t really afford it. It really gets to the psychology of how people think about money, too – there’s not a moment I hate more than divvying up the restaurant check at the end of the evening. Because money is not a very friendly operation – it magnifies what’s mine, what’s yours, what I have, what you have (or don’t.) People like to reduce the process to absolute routine: plug this and pay that, no emotional wavering involved, or “I’ll get the appetizer ‘cause you spotted me money for parking two weeks ago.” It takes the emotional accounting out and turns it into just, accounting. I like that.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
My EFC Pronouncement is Back...
This is my first time dealing with the whole FAFSA / loan process arrangement, so I’m still puzzling through what my EFC (Estimated Family Contribution) will actually mean in reality. My Estimated Family Contribution – ie. what the government has determined I can afford to give towards my education - turns out to be $22,508. Which I’m assuming means that I should be prepared to seek at least that much in loans. Gulp.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
On Privatizing Marriage...
Just finished “Nudge” – a libertarian tome on how to help people make better choices without restricting their freedom. One of their nudges was the proposal of privatizing marriage.
This would essentially turn what we know as marriage today into simply a civil union. Instead of getting a marriage license from the state, you would get a piece of paper licensing a civil union. Any contract beyond that would be dealt by another institution – the church. I presume that the majority of protestant churches would go on pronouncing folks man and wife as per usual. And your church would decide whether or not you can marry under their auspices, and certainly a whole marketplace of religious houses already exist so that practically any two people who desired would no longer have an obstacle.
What this would do would essentially eliminate the debate on gay marriage – the government would no longer be involved in or associated with the notion of “marriage” at all. They would have nullified the argument not by granting homosexual marriage rights, but by moving everyone down to the civil union level. No distinction between the benefits of being married and the benefits of having a civil union. It seems like human rights activists would have to be appeased by this – if all benefits are present, and all are equal, how can you take issue with that arrangement – no matter what you call it?
But if you simply find-and-replace “marriage” with “civil union,” are there any other ramificiations? Are marriages less consequential somehow without government sanction? i.e. Would we see any social changes that would affect our society for better or worse? Certainly, we could expect the amount of marriages overall to increase, accounting for all of the people who could now marry as a result. Would heterosexual marriages also increase? Would it all seem like “less of a big deal” such that we’d have high school sweethearts rushing out to get married, ahem a civil union, with the deep underlying knowledge, that they may have multiple marriages in their lifetime, creating a new social norm that makes it even less sacred than it already is? Would good friends across the globe apply for civil unions for the government benefits alone? Would our society be less stable if people saw not having a civil union with someone as “leaving money on the table.” Or is that argument inane simply because, nothing’s stopping anyone from doing that now, other than the fact that it says marriage instead of civil union on the document.
Or is the concept of privatizing marriage too idealized? When we privatized healthcare with the HMO system, government was still very much entangled, via a world of lobbyists vying for favorable legislation. What sort of additional “marriage markets” would crop up for various couples, and how would the government still be involved with the industry if not the endorsement of marriages.
I did find another interesting 2007 OpEd which brings in a lot of the history of marriage, but didn’t help me resolve any of these thoughts…. I’m intrigued by these libertarian folks…
This would essentially turn what we know as marriage today into simply a civil union. Instead of getting a marriage license from the state, you would get a piece of paper licensing a civil union. Any contract beyond that would be dealt by another institution – the church. I presume that the majority of protestant churches would go on pronouncing folks man and wife as per usual. And your church would decide whether or not you can marry under their auspices, and certainly a whole marketplace of religious houses already exist so that practically any two people who desired would no longer have an obstacle.
What this would do would essentially eliminate the debate on gay marriage – the government would no longer be involved in or associated with the notion of “marriage” at all. They would have nullified the argument not by granting homosexual marriage rights, but by moving everyone down to the civil union level. No distinction between the benefits of being married and the benefits of having a civil union. It seems like human rights activists would have to be appeased by this – if all benefits are present, and all are equal, how can you take issue with that arrangement – no matter what you call it?
But if you simply find-and-replace “marriage” with “civil union,” are there any other ramificiations? Are marriages less consequential somehow without government sanction? i.e. Would we see any social changes that would affect our society for better or worse? Certainly, we could expect the amount of marriages overall to increase, accounting for all of the people who could now marry as a result. Would heterosexual marriages also increase? Would it all seem like “less of a big deal” such that we’d have high school sweethearts rushing out to get married, ahem a civil union, with the deep underlying knowledge, that they may have multiple marriages in their lifetime, creating a new social norm that makes it even less sacred than it already is? Would good friends across the globe apply for civil unions for the government benefits alone? Would our society be less stable if people saw not having a civil union with someone as “leaving money on the table.” Or is that argument inane simply because, nothing’s stopping anyone from doing that now, other than the fact that it says marriage instead of civil union on the document.
Or is the concept of privatizing marriage too idealized? When we privatized healthcare with the HMO system, government was still very much entangled, via a world of lobbyists vying for favorable legislation. What sort of additional “marriage markets” would crop up for various couples, and how would the government still be involved with the industry if not the endorsement of marriages.
I did find another interesting 2007 OpEd which brings in a lot of the history of marriage, but didn’t help me resolve any of these thoughts…. I’m intrigued by these libertarian folks…
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thank You for Nothing, Citi...
Received very cryptic letter from Citi today.
“Dear Suzy:
As of March 15, 2009, we are changing some of the terms and conditions that will affect your ability to earn and redeem ThankYou Points. They listed about a million conditions under which I could lose the points I’d already accrued, but the first one was the big one: “ThankYou Network may be revised in a manner that may affect your ability to use the ThankYou Points you have already accumulated.” i.e. we can “revise” the program to eliminate what you’ve earned, pretty much whenever we feel like it.”
I immediately went on to the ThankYou Network website and ordered a $50 giftcard to Banana Republic with my 6,000 points. And will check in one more time to cash out before this curious March 15th deadline. And then we’ll see what happens after that…
When I’m not satisfied with any other service or company, I just end the relationship. And yet with credit cards, I fear doing anything that will impact my credit score, and I would think closing this account would. So I will just deal, charge a tank of gas on it a month, and spend more on my other cards that give me better rewards.
“Dear Suzy:
As of March 15, 2009, we are changing some of the terms and conditions that will affect your ability to earn and redeem ThankYou Points. They listed about a million conditions under which I could lose the points I’d already accrued, but the first one was the big one: “ThankYou Network may be revised in a manner that may affect your ability to use the ThankYou Points you have already accumulated.” i.e. we can “revise” the program to eliminate what you’ve earned, pretty much whenever we feel like it.”
I immediately went on to the ThankYou Network website and ordered a $50 giftcard to Banana Republic with my 6,000 points. And will check in one more time to cash out before this curious March 15th deadline. And then we’ll see what happens after that…
When I’m not satisfied with any other service or company, I just end the relationship. And yet with credit cards, I fear doing anything that will impact my credit score, and I would think closing this account would. So I will just deal, charge a tank of gas on it a month, and spend more on my other cards that give me better rewards.
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