My Fake Budget

About  a year ago, after reading Your Money or Your Life, I created my first budget.  I dutifully added up our income and averaged regular expenses.  Certain things like rent, utilities, gas, and insurance were easy to figure out.  I had to estimate other expenses like clothing, dining out, cleaning help, gifts, etc.  When all was said and done, our expenses tend to exceed our income on a regular basis.

In addition to irregular freelance income and unexpected expenses, another (major) problem was caused by estimated expenses that were basically numbers I grabbed out of the air.  Even after one year, I haven’t been diligent enough to figure out our average costs for many fun categories.  This is hard to do because we pay cash and we are not very aware of our budget.  In other words, if we budget $100, we may spend $100 jointly and still exceed that amount due to separate activities.

If we look on track to exceed our Dining Out budget by mid-month, I may send a half-hearted email to my husband and note to myself that we must watch our budget or cut elsewhere this month.  Only we seem to not do this or we get a bill that must be paid or another excuse…  The reason I am calling this my/our fake budget is that I simply INCREASE our dining out budgeted amount to match our actual spending instead of making any hard attempts to rein this in.

I know this isn’t good because some months we’re on track or under budget and I’m very happy. Then we exceed our budget the next month and I freak out.

Budgeting is hard!

My Balance Now

Before I moved closer to work, I had an hour drive to and from work.  I re-read my 2012 post that went into depth about how I balanced work/life and thought I’d update it.  Sometimes I can’t believe I endured this commute for so long.

1.  What’s your work schedule?

Before: I got up at 5:15 to 5:45 to get to work on time.  I got home by 5:30-6 pm., usually exhausted with an aching back.

Now: I get up around 6:25 and get to work on time.  I often have time for breakfast and light stretching/exercise!  My drive is 30 minutes tops (usually faster in the mornings when fewer people are on the road).  I get home by 5pm. Sometimes I even hit the gym or go to the park with the kids.  According to co-workers, I’m also less grumpy in the morning!

2. How do you handle childcare?

Before: Part-time nanny, freelancing husband with flexible schedule and more time at home.

Now: Still part-time nanny on occasion who does light housecleaning, plus A LOT of help from my mom.  My husband’s schedule and travel has picked up, which leaves me taking more time off for doctor appointments, illness and such. Pre-school pick-up is a pain to manage.

3. What do you find best about your current set-up?

I love my shorter commute which has resulted in more energy and quality time with spouse, self and kids!  I love getting more help from my mom since she is amazingly good and flexible with her schedule.

4. What advice would you give to other moms about the juggle?

It’s not really about working or not. It’s really about flexiblity. Even within the restraints of a traditional 9 to 5 job, I know I’m fortunate that my boss is understanding about childcare issues as long as I manage to meet deadlines.

I still stand by my love of online shopping: Order as much as you can online.

And I’ve converted to the dark side — smartphone with tons of apps. It’s the only way I can keep track of my emails and shopping lists. My husband and I communicate quickly via text, emails and shared shopping lists, too.

I’ve been taking some vacation days to do a mommy-and-me class with my kids on weekday mornings. It’s shorten my work hours which is nice on a mental level BUT also forces me to eat at my desk some days to get all my work done.  I love using that time to  learn and play with my kids alongside mostly stay-at-home moms or grandparents.  This alleviates a lot of mommy guilt because I have more hours with my kids overall and don’t have to cram all the fun stuff on weekends.

5. Do you think the juggle is harder for women than men?

Yes.  I’m actually guilt-free and good at ignoring snippy comments but I do spend more time cleaning the house and thinking/planning kid-friendly activities.

Feel free to chime in with details about how other women (and men) handle the work/life juggling act!

What The Most Successful People Do At Work

I’m in the middle of reading Laura Vanderkam’s new e-Book “What the Most Successful People Do At Work“, a series that follows two previous e-books about what successful people do before breakfast and on weekends. All of these short books are meant to be quick, informative reads. I think they’re all very enjoyable and most people can get good tips from them. Because work is so busy right now, it’s taking me much longer to read this! For now, I will say that I was struck by the example of a successful children’s book illustrator in Chapter 1, as I expected the successful people profiles to hail from the corporate world. I wasn’t sure if I could relate but considering that there are tons of small business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers out there AND the fact that in many ways, in the current work world, we’re all freelancers that need to plan and prove our worth daily, I think the illustrator can be a good example for all of us. Right now the main take-away I’m getting is the importance of planning the day and your workload. I enjoy taking on bigger projects that require thought and strategic planning but it seems like most of my workday is taken up by immediate needs (and emails!).

Anyway, I would recommend this book. You can buy it yourself today and you’ll probably finish it before I do!

Recycling Is A Pain (But I Do It)

If you can make one change a year, I would add recycling a hard-to-recycle item on your list. We’ve struggled with this over the years as we didn’t have curbside recycling for many years, and we still often forget what is or isn’t recyclable.  However, in recognition of Earth Day, I thought I would share some new and old (recycled!) environmentally-friendly tips:

How to recycle even if you can’t get to a facility.  A simple, good idea if I do say so myself!

Recycling AAA batteries!  In addition to Jiffy Lube, I found a nearby hardware store that accepts household batteries. I feel so much better  doing this than dumping this toxic item into the trash.

Who knew you can recycle paint? Apparently in California, you can drop off used household paint at participating retailers like Sherwin-Williams, Vista Paint, Super Hardware (Mission Ace), Dunn Edwards and more.

I still can’t figure out a consistent way to recycle expired medications or Brita filters…

Of course, just as important as recycling is buying and using less stuff in the first place!

How are you doing in terms of recycling? Can someone explain to me how Recyclebank makes profits?

Frugal Substitutes: The Master Chart

The idea of finding frugal substitutes for expensive wants turned from a comment, courtesy of reader and commenter Debbie M, to a full-fledged post at grumpy rumblings.

Here’s the excerpt from that comment, and I’m called out to name my list of frugal substitutes, an idea inspired by the book “Your Money or Your Life.”

Debbie M says:

“And then there’s also strategizing about what makes you happy. If you want to feel pampered, do you need to visit a tropical island? Or would you be just as happy with an in-town spa or fancy hotel, a massage, a facial, or, in my case, fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies and a good book?”

…And maybe oilandgarlic can share a list of Frugal Substitutes! We can always use more of those!”

And I said:

“I’ve been meaning to respond with my frugal substitutes but I could probably do a whole post. The gist of it is that I try to figure out WHY I want the big indulgence. Am I stressed? Do I want to try something new? In the past, I would assume that the best way to satisfy my want is a spa day or travel. Now I realize that I can satisfy that need for pampering in multiple and often cheaper ways. I could do a at-home facial. I could buy flowers and put a slice of lemon in my water. I can put on relaxing music. I could convince my husband to give me a massage.”

So without further ado, here’s my handy dandy chart (sort of tongue-in-cheek), and please feel free to share your own frugal substitutes:

Story Of A Purse

I’ve never thought of myself as a purse lover.  When I look through magazines, I don’t really get excited about the new “it” purses.  I never aspired to own designer purses.  I have exactly 3 purses for work — 2 in black, and 1 fabric/brown for summer and spring, plus a few smaller ones for weekends but my “collection” would certainly not peg me as a purse aficionado.

Now for the confession which you probably could guess was coming… I splurged on a beautiful black leather bag. This is now one of my 2 black work bags.  I bought it partly because my other black bag had seen better days and I thought I needed another option.  I also loved the design and quality of this $400 bag*.  And it was on sale. And I had gotten a small bonus which I promised to use for a splurge rather than saving it as usual.

I had been eyeing this purse for weeks (months) and it was not going on sale.  It had gotten excellent reviews online regarding its quality and versatility.  I had small hopes that it would go on sale or if it did, my color would be sold out.  Of course I think that the purse may become a permanent part of the designer’s line-up as it seems quite popular. 

I’m glad I bought it.

The reason for my lack of expensive purses is not that I can’t afford one or that I don’t sometimes admire nice-quality purses.  It’s just that other than the workplace, I can usually be found running errands at decidedly normal places like Walmart, Costco, Target, CVS, and the occasional fast food joint.  I have seen women carrying expensive purses into McDonalds, for example, but it seems like an odd juxtaposition to me.  I feel like I should be dining at a nice restaurant, not throwing my beautiful leather bag on a vinyl dining booth seat.

In other words, my beautiful bag doesn’t seem utilitarian enough for my simple lifestyle (and one that involves messy toddlers, too!)  I’m wondering if others have this same thought as I do.  Do expensive purses fit your lifestyle, or do you not even consider this?

* After a 20% discount and some credit card rewards, the total was about $330 including taxes.  Shipping was free. Still high for me!

Fees, Fees, Fees

My girl friends/family and I generally don’t talk about finances.  It’s not really about privacy; it’s just that we have so many other things to talk about! However, I wish that we did share financial insights once in a while, so I’m sharing it on this public space.

I touched on this topic before but there’s a new law going into effect that makes it easier to see fund fees in your 401k plans.   With non-401k mutual funds, you can compare fees but many people ignore the impact of fees on their returns.  Once a year or so, I use the free “Instant X-Ray” tool on Morningstar to analyze my funds and compare fees / returns with similar portfolios.

The bottom line is that the fees associated with mutual funds can decimate your savings.  Choosing no-load and index funds make a big difference in retirement.

This is my public service announcement for the week!