Personal Finance Q&A Time

I saw some financial Q & As that have been making the rounds in the Personal Finance Blog world, over at Slay The Monster, and I thought I'd play along.

Given our age and how long we've been keeping the finances, Hubs and I are near the end of our journey both through life and through the money maze.  So not many will be able to take any ideas away from this.  Maybe folks can see how it looks on the "other side".....once you get the cars, mortgages and debts paid off though.

Question #1 What is your income?  Hubs is not comfortable putting that info out there.  I will say that we are now upper middle class as far as his salary goes.   We started out in student loan debt when we got married.  I was a waitress and he worked whatever job he could get.......including dishwasher, inventory taker, clerk in a law library and night security guard.  A few years later we had to pack our lives up and move 400 miles away to finally find a good job for Hubs.  He got hired by a large insurance company and worked his way around the firm to find his niche in the pension and retirement business end of things.
 Me?  I am a SAHM so I generate no income outside of small side jobs on an irregular basis.  I am "support staff" so that Hubs can spend his days working for "the man". lol

#2 What are my fixed expenses?
Utilities(electric/water/cable/internet/landline)
Food(though this varies)
Cell phones(pay-as-you-go)
Garbage
Sewer
School taxes
Local taxes
Property taxes
College tuition x 2
House Insurance
Car Insurance x 3
Health/Medical Insurance(includes Dental & Eye care)x 5
Long Term Care Insurance x2
Life Insurance x1
Retirement Savings


 #3 What would happen if I died tomorrow?
Hubs would have to take over the day-to-day finances and all the household stuff which I handle now.  Since I don't work outside the home, there is no life insurance on me now.  Use to have some, when the kids were little and they would have had to be taken care of while Hubs worked.  The expenses would go down(no more paying for my medical or long tern care insurance)....and I wouldn't be eating either.lol
Things would go on as usual after awhile if I died tomorrow.  They would however have to give away or sell my fabric hoard....lol

#4 Where would you get $500 for an emergency.
From the checking or the emergency fund savings accounts where the spare money is liquid.  At our ages and after having been saving for as long as we have been(almost from the beginning of our marriage 30 years ago), we have much more than this to yank out for an emergency at this point.

#5  What would you do if you got fired from your job?
I'll answer this from Hubs persepective, as he is the one making the money.  He is so close to retirement age that we would get a lawyer first thing.  Firing him(without a cause such as theft, etc.)would be grounds for an age discrimination lawsuit.  He is in the retirement business(one area that is growing by leaps and bounds), so being let go would be suspect.  IF for some reason the business shrank and they had no choice but to fire him, we would look into his being offered an early retirement package(where they bridge his income to retirement age)or some such concession.  He could mostly likely also be hired in his field as a consultant.  That would give him a short term income near the level he makes now....and might be enough to get him to retirement.
Now for me, if Hubs lost his job?......I'd shut down any spending that was NOT basic.  The cable would go, the landline but we'd keep internet for now.  No credit card spending on anything!  Food budget would drop like a rock!lol  Would be more vigilant on utility usage.  Medical costs would go up as we'd be forced onto COBRA.  We'd probably take oldest son off of medical/dental since he'll be out of school in the Spring(if it happens after that).
We would shrink the "nut" we needed to live for a year as small as possible to make the money last until Hubs pension money and/or social security kicked in.  We'd get jobs of some kind, as would any of the kids living at home and the kids would contribute a portion of their income to the household.
After #3 kid finishes high school in 2 years, we would sell the house and move.  We'd downsize and go to an area near family and/or somewhere cheaper to live.

The last thing we'd do if we had no other choice..... the college funds would be kept for living expenses.
The kids would have to finish up school on their own dimes.


#6  How will you live in your retirement?
Not sure yet exactly where.  We are looking at retirement in 4-6 years.....probably more toward 6.  We have run the numbers and unless things change drastically, we will have enough income in retirement to be comfortable.  We want to travel a bit at first before settling down somewhere.

#7  What could you sell for extra cash if needed?
The extra car.
Part of the collection of jewelry my mother left to me.
We really don't have much else that is valuable to anyone else.

#8 Does your spending align with your values?  We try to do this.  We don't buy stuff just to buy it.  We buy very few wants.  We try to buy local and made in this country.  We try to buy quality.  That being said, sometimes price overrides these.lol  We believe in people being responsible for their choices in live and living the consequences of those choices so we don't hand money over to everyone who has their hand out.  We give thoughtfully and to those we truly feel are the most in need.  Though we will help family in true need, we don't believe in enabling family members who misbehave with money or giving money to family who can work but choose not to.  We'd rather pay a bill to keep their lights on than hand them cash so they can go to the mall and buy another designer shirt with it.


#9  What are you teaching your kids about money?
It's a tool and how you use that tool will decide what kind of person you will be as an adult.
It's like "the force" and you need to understand it and while you are at it?....use it for good. 
And if you want to have a life filled with nice things, you need to make a lot of it and spend it wisely.   ;-)

My older 2 kids "got it" once they had to start spending their own cash.  I still need to work on the youngest kid.  16 year olds with their hormonal brains aren't the best students when it comes to teaching this stuff.lol

#10  What steps can you take today to improve your financial situation?
We waste so little now it's hard to come up with ways to make our situation better, other than me finding a job that pays me a large salary......and that is not going to happen.lol




Sluggy

Despicable College Hijinks

Ah Summer!
Let us recount all the joys that Summer brings......
warm days
picnics and outdoor gatherings
life just seems to slow down
pooltime
grilling out fun foods
vacations and traveling
College bills are due

Yes, if you have kids in college(or are about to), Summer brings those dreaded College Tuition Bills too.

Daughter's bill arrived the end of last week which seemed a bit early, even to me!
And even better, even though she doesn't start classes until after Labor Day, the bill is due in full by July 27th.

So I sat down last weekend to go over the bill....you know, to make sure the charges were correct and all.....because I have a thing about giving away our money when we don't have to. lol

She had a charge for something I didn't recognize so I hopped onto the school's website and found it and what it was for.
Everything looked good except.......except there was no credit for the $50 Deposit we had paid back in March when she applied, which was suppose to be refunded if/when she enrolled/paid for her 1st semester.

So I told the Daughter to call the school and take care of it since it is HER life, HER education and SHE is now an adult. ;-)
She called the school and told me that the person she spoke to said that the deposit had already been applied to her bill.

I showed her the bill and asked her to show me where on it, the credit had been applied.....which she couldn't do.
I then asked her whom had she talked to at the college......she said, "some one in Admissions".

I then explained to her that "some one in Admissions" was NOT who you talk to about a BILLING problem and that they are probably told to just say "your deposit is already taken off your bill" to anyone who calls them, thinking it will satisfy them and they will just go away.lol

So Daughter rolls her eyes(meaning "why are you making such a big deal out of $50?!"...though if it was HER $50 it would suddenly become a VERY BIG DEAL!lol)and walks away and gives up dealing with the problem.  It is too much trouble for her to get to the bottom of this issue.

I then call the College and speak to the Billing Dept. clerk.  She as well tries to tell me that the credit is already applied as her initial response......this is even before she knows which student's bill I am referring to.
*face palm*

So I insist she bring up the specific bill(I can wait)on her screen and we can compare the one I am holding with her copy and she can show me exactly where my $50 deposit shows up(or doesn't).
I am given a big old exasperated *sigh* and then she asks for the student ID# and puts the receiver down and clicks some keys.
After more key clicking suddenly Daughter's bill drops....$50?!
How can that be, when her bill was correct and that $50 had been applied already?
Oh, I know how it can be......

I tell the Clerk that I am writing the new total on the bill with a note why I am not paying the full amount.
She says that is fine, that the new lower amount is showing in their records now, so send the original invoice in with the lower payment.

Having gone through this little charade, it makes me think that NOBODY who puts a Deposit down and ends up attending this college has their Deposit applied against their Tuition charges.....nobody unless they NOTICE and ASK FOR IT BACK!

By operating in this manner, the school assures themselves that a percentage of students(and I am thinking it's a substantial percentage of students)will forget about that $50 Deposit and never get it back.

Most students are 18-20 years old and NOT very concerned with taking care of paperwork anyway, so between having to actually proactively DO something to get the money back, and many of them are utilizing financial aids(loans/grants) and/or having parents pay the bills....so letting others "take care" of the money parts and not worrying about the finances, this College is filling their coffers unethically by keeping all these Deposit checks.

Figuring they admit 3,000 new students a year, if 50% of them don't get their Deposit checks back, that's a bonus of $75,000 a year for the College!

Crazy like a fox this school is.....

Since Daughter couldn't be bothered to take care of this?  I am taking that $50 out of her College Fund and putting it into my "Mom's Mad Money" Fund.   I get a bonus and she pays stupid tax.....

Moral of the Story--Watch the accuracy of those College invoices and talk to the correct department if there is a problem.

Sluggy

WTF Tuesday

I went to the doctor yesterday and it seems I won't be keeling over dead anytime soon.
Yah me!
I'll be around to vex everyone for a good long time.  Though I am still short of breath.
I knew you were all worried...... ;-)

I am feeling all out of sorts this summer.
Not just in a physical way but in a cosmic, not-right-with-the-universe way.

Last summer I had lots to keep me busy......the July Stockpile Sale.......the August Stockpile Sale......a nice garden to tend......having Kid #2 graduate from high school and then packing off Kid #2 to college for the 1st time.....getting ready to hold a big Toy Sale(that didn't happen in the end, but I spent time working on it anyway).

This Summer?
No Stockpile Sales.
Kid #2 is back home and won't be living at school in the Fall.
The garden is dinky this year and due to the drought, not much action there.

I don't know.
I am just not feeling much of anything to blog about this Summer.
Ok, so I do blog but obviously calling my online friends "assholes" and posting long reads about the Civil War Draft Riots of 1863 aren't very popular.

Perhaps I should go back to talking about hoarding...or better yet cat hoarding!
Yes, since I started checking on my blog "keyword" searches, cat hoarding has been a phrase that has led many MANY people to my blog's front door.
I don't even like cats.....

So to keep things light and frothy today, I am going to show you some photos.

First off, I finally got around to making PICKLES!!!

Of course, everyone wanted me to make them but when I finally did, no one is eating them now but me!
But that's ok since I "heart" these pickles....nom nom nom.....

And here is the comedy duo I spend most days with....

Cherry the beagle and Penny the chihuahua.....the Abbott and Costello of the dog world!

Cherry loves to spend her days laying on her back.
Besides just hanging around upside down, the 2 dogs have a "Who's on First!?" routine worked out that they perform every day, usually beginning at 2:30pm....sometimes they start earlier than that, because they don't synchronize their watches evidently.

The "show" goes like this.....
Cherry will roll onto her back, usually this happens in the middle of the den or kitchen floor.  If Penny is not present, Cherry will whine and make quiet "ruffing" noises to get her attention.  Penny is mostly deaf though, but Penny has ADHD and walks around all. day. long., so she will "find" Cherry in "position" within minutes.

Once Penny is on "stage" with Cherry the show begins.
Cherry begins her "dance".  She slowly twist and turns on her back and moans.  Not an "I'm in pain moan".....Imagine a human porn film but with a dog playing the part.  Yah, it's kinda like that.
I know, that sounds weird but it's the only thing that is close to what it sounds like.

Penny stands over Cherry, constantly moving though, like a slow motion dance, and starts barking.
It's that high pitched "nail through your skull" bark that Chihuahuas do.
And they dance, moan and bark.....and bark.....and bark......
They would do this for hours I think, if I didn't take a yardstick to them, and make them stop after 20 minutes or until my head and nerves explode.

They stop but as soon as I leave the room or go back to trying to ignore them, they go right back to performing.....writhing on the floor, moaning, the tip tip of chihuahua toenails prancing in place and then the yipping that makes the paint want to peel right off the walls.

And this goes on right up until 4pm, which is their dinner time, or I break down sooner and feed them.
It's a wonder I have a sane thought left in my head some days!

And here is a photo an old friend sent me recently.  He actually sent this photo to me a few years ago but my computer crashed and I hadn't saved this photo elsewhere.  He recently sent it again.
This friend and I met the Summer of 1975.
I'll not share anything else about him, except to say that he once dressed up as Marilyn Monroe for a Halloween party and you'd have been hard pressed to tell him apart from the real Marilyn.....of course if she wasn't dead and all.
But I digress....

We were both interns in a Summer Theater Workshop at a local Dinner Theater.
I had joined this program because a friend of mine, whom I had attended 8th grade with had.
We remained friends even though I attending the Parochial high school and she went to her local public one. 

Anyway, I kept in touch with this other friend I met at the theater(though he also went to a different high school from me).  We've reconnected off an on over the years since then. 
I went to his house for a visit the following Fall.
This was Oct. of 1976.
I was a Senior in high school.
Please forgive the Catholic school uniform plaid pleated skirt.
This is Sluggy in all her glory at 17.
Fashion victim of the '70's.

So how is YOUR summer going?
Is it me or are the planets spinning out of orbit this year?




Sluggy-who if given the chance for a teenage redo, would have done so many things differently!

Food Spending July Week 2 & Meal Planning July Week 3

My keyboard seems possessed today.  Things are inadvertently getting "highlighted" and erased by some unseen force.  I have gotten up with disgust from the computer a time or two today and gone off to take care of other things here just to keep my sanity.

If I get this finished while it's still Monday AND I still have my wits about me, it will be a feat extraordinaire!

*****************************
And here is the "meal plan" that actually happened last week.....


SUNDAY--Smoked Chicken, Cornbread, mixed Veggies in Chinese Sauce
MONDAY--using up the leftover steak....steak sandwiches, steak salad-not sure yet

TUESDAY--Ribs, Beans, Macaroni Salad(yet again!lol)

WEDNESDAY--Squash Casserole, Grilled Salmon

THURSDAY--Subway Sandwiches

FRIDAY--Dinner Out (Chinese)

SATURDAY--Fajitas with smoked Chicken

We used up all the leftovers again.....yay us!   Hubs and I have been eating alone again this week due to Daughter's work schedule.  She either goes out for pizza or wings after work or she eats something at the mall if she is working at dinner time.  "Dinner" being a $1 soft pretzel and a $1 lemonade.  We'll see how long she goes like that until she gets tired of spending her own money and/or she needs real food again.

The weekly food spending was $91.05.  After only spending $7.62 last week, we needed more than usual this past week.  Plus ground beef was $1.99lb(rock bottom price!)at Weis, so I bought 7ish lbs.  We also made our monthly trip to the bread outlet last week and since it's summer we added some snacks(chips)to the shopping list.
The regular retail value for all was $172.32 so I had a 47.16% savings rate.  And this isn't counting what I hauled home from Rite-Aid for free last week...figure in another $49.25 worth of stuff at reg. retail and my savings rate shoot up to 58.90%!  ;-)

As I reset my July Food Budget to $300, I now have $201.33 left to spend on food/toiletries this month.  16 shopping days left in July.  I think I can make it! 8-)

Going into the new week I have the following leftovers to use up......fajita fixings, 1 piece of cornbread and about half of the squash casserole.

***********************

This week's menu.....

SUNDAY--Leftover Chinese(from our Dinner Out)
MONDAY--Marin Joe's Special

TUESDAY--Lemon Pepper Chicken w/Zucchini

WEDNESDAY--Hamburger Helper type casserole, leftover Squash casserole

THURSDAY--Kielbasa on Rolls, homemade Pickles, Green Beans

FRIDAY--homemade Quiche, Tossed Salad

SATURDAY--Leftovers

What I need to buy this week to serve this menu?.....
I bought most everything to make these dishes when I went to the store last week.  I will need to buy a pie crust for the quiche and salad greens.  Green beans might be purchased if our bean plants don't "give up the goods" by Thursday. lol  I see some milk and fruit being purchased as well.  As for stock-up opportunities this week?....I haven't even looked at the store ads yet.   I should be able to keep the food spending under $40 this week.

A note......it's been amazing to me to see how little we need to spend on food when it's just Hubs and I eating and we aren't feeding the ravenous offspring.  Unfortunately, while the amount of food prepared and bought goes down, the amount of time I have to spend on menu planning, shopping and preparing said food hasn't decreased.  If you are cooking 2 pork chops or 8 pork chops, you still spending the same amount of time doing all that stuff.  8-(

So what's on deck for your menu this week?

Sluggy

The 150th Anniversary of The Perfect Powder Keg

Having come down with the "Genealogy Bug", I am enjoying not only discovering my own personal ancestry roots, but I'm also getting into delving deeper into the history of the US.

This week....July 13th-18th.....marks the 150th Anniversary of an important event in American history.
A shameful event that has been mostly ignored since it happened all those many years ago.

Many Americans look down on the racism evident in the pre-war Southern states of this country.  The economy that took root in those states, that required the implementing of the plantation system in the early dates of our country's founding, which ended up driving the slave trade to our shores.

Though Northerners have always been portrayed as morally superior to their Southern counterparts,  racism, as well as hate toward immigrants, existed and thrived in the North up through the end of the Civil War.

1863 marked the date when the 1st National Draft was instituted in the US.  All men were required to register for the draft at this point during the Civil War.  If you were between the ages of 20 and 35, no matter your marital status and if you were single between the ages of 36 and 45, you were part of the Class I list of draftees.
If you were outside of those parameters, you were put onto the Class II list or Reserves.
This Draft was only for whites, as even free Northern dwelling blacks were not considered full citizens of this country.

I have found 1 ancestor so far, on my paternal lines, that was called to register for the Draft in 1863.
His name was Robert Spencer Bowman.  He was born in 1826 in Ireland and self-reported coming to the US in 1852, as a married man, in the 1900 Census.

Here is a shot of a piece of the Class II Book from 1863, for the 11th Congressional District of NY, with his name in it.  His is the last name in the shot.  It lists his "color"(white), his age(36), where he was born(Ireland) and in the remarks section it says "Alien".

Thought the year he actually arrived is split between 1848 and 1855, we do know that he arrived aboard a ship from Liverpool that came into the Port of New York City.
So he came to American right around the time of the opening of the 1st of the 2 great immigration processing centers of the 19th century.

Everyone knows of Ellis Island but the first center was called Castle Garden.
It was located where Fort Clinton stood, a fort constructed for defense purposes during the Revolutionary times to protect the southern part of Manhattan island.  It is where a resort and park had been built in the 1820's.  By mid 1850's the resort was in disuse so it was selected to be the disembarkation/processing point for all immigrants into NY harbor.
Castle Garden saw the first large waves of immigrants, mostly from Ireland and from Germany.
My ancestor was part of this migration from Ireland due to the Great Potato Famine that plagued that isle from 1845-1852.

But I digress......
My ancestor arrived in New York City between 1848 and 1855.  After the arrival of his wife and children who had been born in Ireland in 1856, the family migrated from the city and by 1860 they are found in Montgomery, NY, 60 miles northwest of NY city, with 5 surviving children. 

Lucky for Robert Bowman & family that they weren't still in New York City at the time of the implementation of the War Draft in 1863.

Massive numbers of Irish immigrants flooded New York City, to the tune of 200,000 by 1855.  The problem was that a great many of these new Americans were the poorest of the poor from Ireland and had barely the resources to pay to get on a boat, let alone any monies to support themselves once on this shore.  They likewise, had no monies to transport themselves out of NY City and into the great expanses of the country outside of the harbor town to find a farmer to work for and in time, find their own piece of land to call their home.  The  majority of immigrants were trapped in NY City.  Imagine what it was like.....people everywhere, not enough shelter for everyone, no employment available so no way to earn a wage to feed yourself.  Overcrowding, poverty and an unchecked birth rate, which led to filthy and unsanitary conditions in the city streets that bred disease and death.

Gangs of desperate people sprung up and banded together to take care of their "own kind" and operate outside of the law since they couldn't feed themselves within it's parameters.  The Boss Tweed era of NY politics began during this time as well which added another layer of corruption onto the society.  New ships of immigrants were about as welcomed during this time and in this place as a case of dysentery.
Murder and mayhem were simmering just below the surface in the New York City of 1863.  The film, "The Gangs of New York" did a fairly good job of showing the violence that permeated Manhattan during the mid 1800's.

 The native-born Whites were not happy with these immigrants elbowing into their country.  The rich ran the government in a way to pit the native-born lower class against the newly immigrated, thus keeping the power and riches in their hands and keeping all the citizenry under their thumbs. 
The native-born Whites and the Immigrants took to forming gangs for protection. It was a lawless time and while the government couldn't be counted on, your gang was your last resort for protection.

Though free men, the Blacks in NY City were relegated to holding the jobs on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.  With the influx of this wave of foreign immigration, they saw massive competition for the few jobs available to them, as the Irish were kept out of all desirable employment.  The Irish competed with the native-born Blacks for life sustaining jobs and the labor force already here was none too pleased.  The newly arrived Irish were often not viewed as "white", but as a different race, along with the "blacks".  Both groups were looked down upon.

The immigrants as well weren't very happy once they stepped onto this shore.  Yes, they were glad to be out of Ireland and starvation there, but this new place was full of men ready to swindle you out of your last penny, to perpetrate violence and intimidation onto you at every turn to keep you from finding employment or shelter.  It was tough being a new immigrant in 1850-1860's NY.
Not only did you have to fight for your very life at the hands of your fellow citizen but you had the government making you sign up to fight and probably die in a civil war you had no hand in making!
What must they have thought in the face of all this hostility they stepped into?

For those new immigrants from Ireland it was a choice......a choice between an inevitable death by starvation in Ireland and a scratching to survive hand-to-mouth existence in America.  While not a great alternative, it was better than certain death back home.
My ancestor stepped off a ship from Ireland, after spending weeks in steerage, to be greeted by the sort of conditions I've described above.
Robert Spenser Bowman must have had a strong spirit to make it through all that to get past the New York City of circa 1852.

By the time 1863 rolled around the Civil War was in it's 3rd year of conflict.  Add in to the usual hostilities of one group toward another, the deprivations of goods available for sale to the public at large. Wartime means less food, cloth, lumber for the people.  Inadequate resources become even more limited and the scarcity drives prices out of the reach of all but the richest people.

1863 was also the year of the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation.   The government had been warning the citizenry in the North for 2 years beforehand, that once the legislation for freeing all Southern slaves was law, that they should prepare for an influx of newly-freed blacks.  This meant more people streaming into the North, to compete for the few jobs, housing, food and goods of all kind in a city already busting at the seams with humanity.

And just when conditions couldn't possibly get any worse in NY, they did.
When Abraham Lincoln instituted the Compulsory Northern Draft in 1863, it included a clause that caused the violence to boil over.
The $300 Clause held that any man who was required to register for the Draft could, for the price of $300, pay his way out of having to serve.  Adjusting for inflation, $300 in 1863 is over $5,000 in today's money.

The common man saw this as the last straw, that anyone of the elite class could buy his way out of harm's way and and avoid fulfilling his patriotic duty.  So much for the creed of all men being equal!
Three now famous cowards who bought their way out of service to the North were a young John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carneige and Junius Spencer Morgan(of JP Morgan fame).

This clause smacked of classism and even spawned many an outraged letter to the New York Times in the day before being stuck down in 1864, when it was replaced with a Bounty for Service Clause.

The Draft was physically begun on July 11th and by the morning of July 13th, the violence had begun.  The mobs of angry whites limited their attacks to military and government targets....police, government buildings, soldiers.  As the mobs grew they attacked anyone who was in their way.  Soon the anger turned toward Blacks unlucky enough to be in the streets and "black" businesses.  In the end an orphanage and school for black children was set afire and destroyed along with numerous other homes and businesses.
It is said that some of the fire departments in the city(many of which were formed by gangs of native-born whites), fueled the riots by setting fires themselves rather than putting them out.



When order was finally restored 5 days later, 11 Blacks had been  lynched and those others dead included a child from the destroyed Orphanage/School and areas of the city lay smoldering and destroyed.  Many Blacks were forced to flee or left the city by choice, never to return to Manhattan.

I am thankful my ancestor was clear of NY City and safely living his life in a small town Upstate by 1860 that didn't see this sort of violence take hold.
Looking around at the climate today, it is sad to see that in many ways, things in this country have not changed much 150 years later.

Sluggy