I am a nerd

In about a half an hour Eastern Time, it will be 2007.

What am I doing? Sitting at my dining room table. I just finished my December budget. Now I'm thinking I'll go to bed because the baby will be awake again before I know it and I am tired from cleaning house all day.

Back in the day, I would have been at a party right now, or more likely, sitting and talking with a small group of friends. This year all I wanted was to stay home. Yep, this clinches it. I'm a nerd.

See you next year.

Save me from myself

Most of the time I don't like to shop, don't feel the urge to buy stuff, and don't really want a lifestyle more luxurious than the one I have.

Most of the time, that is.

Once in a while, I find myself wanting to buy something outrageous, something totally out of my price range, something that I don't even think is a good deal. I want that, I'll think. I want that thing, and even more than that, I want to have a life where I can buy what I want.

The most recent example is something so out of character for me that I can't even believe I want it so badly.

Yesterday, we left the kid with some friends for a couple hours and went to a jewelry store. This store has been M's secret for the past couple of years. He almost always buys something there for my birthday or for our anniversary, and he would never tell me where it was. But we had agreed that for my 30th birthday we should buy something special. I wanted a gold and garnet ring. We're not into that whole marriage thing, so we've never exchanged rings of any kind, and he's never bought me anything but silver jewelry. We agreed that for a purchase this major we should go together and pick something out.

And so, his secret store was revealed. This place is amazing. There is no sign out front, just a nondescript door and a buzzer. The place is chock full of jewelry, most of it unusual and not all that valuable. There were cases with diamonds, rubies, etc, but most of the store was semi-precious stones. I tried on a bunch of garnet rings, and found one we both liked for $135. Great. So far so good.

But then I decided maybe I should just take a peek at the other cases to see if there was something I liked better. Perhaps I'd see a setting I really liked and we could ask them to drop a garnet into it.

That's when I found it. The ring. It was a strange ring with a big flower-shaped setting (if you ever saw me you'd know in five seconds I am so not a floral kinda girl) with a large and extremely unusual semi-precious stone in it. I WANT THAT RING. It costs $450.

Now, if I had decided this was the ring, M would have probably been willing to get it. He didn't like it as much as he liked the garnet, and he sort of balked at the price. However, since I'm not a big spender normally, I think he would have been willing to indulge me. But it's not an every day kind of ring. The stone is too large and I'm afraid it would catch on things. And it's just too unusual. It wouldn't go with most of what I wear. But still. I want that ring.

We bought the garnet ring, arranged for it to be resized, and came home. The garnet ring is perfect. It's beautiful. It's special. Garnets are my favorite stone. It's the perfect gift from my sweetheart for my 30th birthday, and it will go with the other garnet jewelry he's gotten me.

And yet, I'm still thinking about that other ring.

I could get it. I could just go in there and buy it. I could justify it somehow. I never spend money on things like that. We didn't do that whole wedding thing, I don't even like diamonds, and I'm unlikely to buy another piece of jewelry worth more than $30 for at least a decade. And we received some money gifts from our families this year. We're being good. We're saving almost all of it, and giving some away. Why not buy myself a little treat? Why not?

Here's what I've decided to do.

1. I went through the shoe box where I keep my jewelry and pulled out two gold rings and a couple of bracelets that I never ever wear and am unlikely to ever ever wear again. There are a couple of old family pieces that I'm also unlikely to wear, but my mother would have a cow if I unloaded those. I'm going to take them in to the jewlery store when I go later this week to pick up my re-sized garnet ring and I'm going to ask how much the gold is worth and whether they'll buy it for me.

2. If after a week I still want the crazy impractical ring, and if the jewelry I'm getting rid of brings in at least half of the price of the ring, I'm going to buy it.

3. First, though, I'm going to ask if they have another stone like it but smaller, and I'm going to look at some settings and see if there's one I like better. If I'm going to spend so much money on a tiny rock, I might as well love the setting instead of just thinking it's okay in a funky sort of way. And I may as well get a smaller stone if I can, altho the stone is so unusual I'm not sure they'll have another one.

4. I'm still going to wear the garnet from my sweetheart most days, but I'll have my funky ring to wear sometimes when I want something different.

5. And then, I am never, ever going to that store again. It's dangerous.

Cashduck: Some numbers

I'm still enjoying my newest distraction: the paid-to-try site run by Kira of Penny Foolish. I thought I'd report on how it's going. I joined up about six weeks ago.

Total withdrawals already processed: $143.55
Total withdrawals pending: $97.81
Total spent on paid-to-try offers: $10
Net earnings: $231.36
Total times I forgot to cancel an offer and got charged: 0
Total referrals (direct and indirect): 56
Total earnings from referrals: $86.73 (thanks, guys!)


There are quite a few free offers that are relatively easy, but I've relized I only have the stomach to do the occasional paid trial. I just hate having to call and cancel a service, and I always feel compelled to pretend that I didn't just sign up for the bonus money. The worst was the dating site I got paid $20 to sign up for.

Agent: "May I ask why you want to cancel your membership?"
Me: "Well, it's a little embarrassing..."
Agent: "Yes?"
Me: "See, I signed up because my boyfriend and I broke up, but now we're back together again, so I don't need to meet someone."
Agent: "Don't be embarrassed. I hear that kind of story every day."
Me: "Really."
Agent: "Congratulations on getting back together with your boyfriend."
Me: "Uh, thanks."


And then I also had to laughingly confess to my partner that I'd signed up for a dating service. I was afraid he'd find out and think the worst. He thinks I'm whacked for doing these paid-to-try things, but I think some of his hobbies are pretty whacked too.

Related posts:
Got my credit scores today (for free)
Review of Cashduck


Please feel free to strip out the referral IDs in my Cashduck links if you want to sign up but don't want to join my stable of referrals.

Third paycheck of the month!

Hooray! My partner got paid today for the third time this month. Because many of his benefits come out of his checks twice a month (24 times a year) but he's paid biweekly (26 times a year) he has two extra checks a year, and these extra paychecks are bigger because all his benefits aren't coming out.

I wish I could say the extra check, or even the extra $200 in the check that usually goes towards benefits, will go into our savings accounts. But one of my jobs is on its winter break, which means no pay. And December was such an expensive month. That extra check will pay the January tuition bill.

Ah, family

Anybody else noticing that the holidays bring out all those little quirks in the folks you love? Luckily this season I'm noticing the endearing ones more than the not-so-lovable quirks. And because money is such a fraught issue, many of my family's quirks have to do with money.

Here's what I've seen this season.

1. My mother. Trying to save money, she spent the first part of her visit not paying for ANYTHING. Then she started to feel more relaxed about money and started offering to pay all the time. Enough with the extremes! I finally said, "Let's go dutch treat. That's really how I like to do things." Things were easier after that. She also spent a lot of time looking at houses, which meant I got to look at my neighborhood through a buyer's eyes again. It was fun but I'm still afraid she's going to buy too much house. My new mantra: "not my problem not my problem not my problem".

2. My sister. She's has always been really generous. This year, as usual, she got me so many Xmas gifts that she was embarrassed to give them all to me in front of the rest of the family, so she started smuggling stuff to me several weeks before Xmas. She also baked up a storm. I need to retrain my stomach not to need several pieces of fudge between meals.

3. Little sister. Newly married. Refused all invitations and stayed home to celebrate Xmas alone in their little apartment. She gushed on the phone: "He got me diamond earrings!" She and I did not exchange gifts, a happy choice for both of us.

4. My father. Very appreciative of all gifts, generous but not over-the-top. The only snafu was when he wanted to know how little L liked the present from Grandpa. I had forgotten it at home, so it wasn't under the tree where we spent Xmas. Luckily my dad was understanding.

5. My partner. Was very patient until about 11AM Xmas morning, when he told me in a terse undertone that he was ODing on Xmas music, and could we please go home now? After a hastily organized walk, he was able to tolerate the Xmas spirit until the middle of the afternoon.

6. My son. He wanted an electric train that could run around the Xmas tree. Since he still throws things/bangs them/pulls the little pieces off toys I decided he was not old enough for a real model train. I was afraid he would be sad that he didn't get one. However, the avalanche of Playmobil, Thomas the Tank Engine, and penguin-themed toys seemed to satisfy him. He was perfectly happy with the contents of his stocking and had to be coaxed into the other room to see the motherlode under the tree.

7. My brother. Lives overseas. Was unreachable on Xmas. Left charming messages for all of us. Upheld his side of our long-standing no-gift pact.

8. Me. Obsessed horribly over the gifts I got for everyone else, especially my sister's. She won't like them. She'll think I didn't spend enough. She'll think I spent too much. It's the wrong color. I should have bought the other one. As usual, she either loved everything I got her or was too gracious to reveal that she didn't.

How to create a giving plan

The end of the year is upon us. While you're recovering from the holidays, take a moment to tie up some last minute financial loose ends that will put you in good shape at tax time.

I usually make most of my charitable donations in February or March while I'm working on my taxes. That's when I say, "I only gave that much last year?" And I decide to do better starting immediately. This year, I decided to send that wave of donations before the end of the year. As usual, my spouse didn't want to start writing checks at random. He wanted to refine our giving plan first.

What's a giving plan? It's a clear map of how you intend to use donations of money, time, and other things to strengthen your community according to your values. Here's a step-by-step guide.

Somehow, carve out a couple hours to talk about this, if there is more than one of you who has to give input. We did ours in the car on the way home from spending Xmas with my sister's family. The kid was asleep in the back seat, and we had nothing else to do.

First, we made a list of types of causes we want to support. The list could be as specific or as general as you want. It could contain things like environmental groups, education, prison reform, religious groups, animal rights, disaster relief, AIDS, or whatever moves you. (See this post for our list of categories.)

Then, we read through the list, and we each ranked each category to determine how important it was. We used a 1-5 ranking system, where 1 was something we definitely wanted to support, and 5 was something we could support later when we had more money, or where we were happy with in-kind donations of time, etc, that we are already making. It was useful to see which things are really important to both of us, and which things one of us cares more about.

Using these numbers, we identified a handful of causes that are critically important to both of us. This was our "First Tier". We also made a "Second Tier", a list of causes that one of us felt very strongly about, or that both of us thought was pretty important even if it was not a critical issue. The Third Tier we haven't dealt with yet, but we listed each category in the First and Second Tier and then matched them up with organizations we already give to. We then decided which ones we want to increase our donations to, and found some major holes where we need to find organizations that meet our requirements. We ended the meeting with a list of groups (with dollar amounts) that we plan to send money to this week, before the end of the year. And we also each had a list of groups or categories we are responsible for doing more research on.

Clear as mud? I hope so.

If you'd like to see our list of categories, visit this post.

Our giving plan

In order to meet our charitable donation goals for 2006, we've refined our giving plan.

Here's the list of catgegories, in order of priority.

First Tier (most important):
Resist, (a group that gives grants to smaller organizations, and which we thought was important enough to deserve its own category). Total annual donation: $200
Women's health/violence against women. Total annual budget: $200
LGBT rights. Total annual budget: $100
Anti-Racism. Total annual budget: $100

Second Tier (most important):
Environmental justice. Total annual budget: $100
Hunger and poverty (local emphasis). Total annual budget: $100
Anti-war and anti-militarism. Total annual budget: $50
Education. Total annual budget: $85
Anti-state repression. Total annual budget: $100
Prisoners and political prisoners. Total annual budget: $75
Economic justice and labor. Total annual budget: $50

And here's the Third Tier, many of which are areas we already give to in small ways either financially or by donating our time. This doesn't mean they're not important, but they ranked below the things in the first and second tiers. Also, in many cases, the groups we give to who fall into first and second tier categories ALSO fall into third tier categories, so we don't feel we need to prioritize these categories much.

In no particular order:
International solidarity.
Anti-fascism/anti-right wing.
Disaster relief.
AIDS.
Middle East, especially Palestine and Iraq.
Parenting.
Media.
Youth.


Total annual donations: Around $1500


PS. I'm not too good at being subtle about my political beliefs. If you read this list and realized I'm your worst nightmare, I hope you'll still find the post about how to create a giving plan useful.

Related posts:
Tithing: Creating a giving plan
Do you give at the office?
Frugal gift idea number 2: The tax-deductible gift

Gross annual income

Because my hours vary each semester, my pay varies. I can guess at my annual income, but I never know for certain what it will be.

Today, I just got my final paychecks of 2006 from both of my employers, so I actually know what my salary has been for 2006! It's higher than I expected.

Primary job
Expected: $25,064
Actual: $27,002
Explanation: I did get a small (tiny, miniscule, infinitesimal, etc) pay increase July 1, but the extra income is mostly from the fact that my hours increased unexpectedly around Sept 1. They'll go back down again at the end of April, 2007.

Second job
Expected: $13,933
Actual: $14,039
Explanation: This was always a wild guess. Hours are doled out based on seniority, and I'm number 3 out of 4 on the staff totem pole. So I wasn't sure how many hours I'd be able to get. I'm pretty surprised that I was so close to being right about my income from this source. The other twist is that our union contract expired Sept 1. When we sign a new contract (hopefully soon, and hopefully without a strike) I should have some retro pay for the past four months.

Total
Expected: $38,997
Actual: $41,041

Hooray! $2000 higher than expected. I expect 2007 to be lower, because my partner will be increasing his hours from 21/week to 40+/week, so I'll be able to work less.

Note: This also doesn't include around $1000 or so of freelance income.

Related posts:
What's my salary?
The biggest gift I can give my son
Job search: When to ask for salary information
My job search and its unexpected conclusion

'Twas the week before Christmas

Hello? Am I the only one at work today? I'm certainly almost the only one in my building.

I was supposed to have jury duty today but when I called in last night they told me I was dismissed. So here I am.

5 things you don't know about me

I've been tagged by Madame X to participate in this meme.

I confess that I'm having a hard time thinking of five things that are:

a.) interesting
b.) not too damning
c.) not something that could be used by evil blog-reading stalkers to find me offline
d.) not already included in the 100 things meme I participated in a while back.

But here goes nothing.

1.) I like sherbet and sorbet better than ice cream.

2.) Unless it's peppermint ice cream with hot fudge sauce.

3.) I stopped breastfeeding my son 3 weeks ago, on his 3rd birthday.

4.) If I could be an artist, I'd be a printmaker. But I am a verbal, not a visual, person. So I collect various types of prints when I can. Someday I'd like to have a real letterpress.

5.) And now, I'll reveal to you what most of my offline friends and family don't know: I am addicted to romance novels.


Now, I'm supposed to tag a few other folks. I hope I don't accidentally tag someone who's already done this meme.

You're up, guys:
Andi
Millionaire Artist
Penny Nickel
Wanda
Savvy Saver

Prosper completes first debt sale

One of my Prosper loans was sold to a debt buyer this week. Here are a few details.

From a recent communique from Prosper:

"Prosper has completed its first debt sale. Loans eligible for this sale were at least 120 days late as of the end of November. Loans with promises-to-pay or post-dated payments scheduled were not included in the sale. Loans are generally sold to debt buyers in large batches. In this sale, Prosper put approximately 50 loans up for bid. The winning bid on the portfolio was 11.5% of the principal balance."

----------------

My loan was worth $83.33 before it was sold, and I got $13.00 from the sale. So, I lost about $70. I'm not too happy about this, but I knew going in that this was a risky investment. I should strengthen my criteria for choosing listings.

Aside from the one that just defaulted completely, I have another loan that has been late off and on. At the moment, it's about two weeks late, and the remaining principal balance is $41.14. My other 19 loans are all current, with an average interest rate of 13% and a total account value of $835.04.

Related posts:
Index to posts about Prosper.com

Relatives' visit report

As I mentioned yesterday, my stepmother's mother came to meet us today.

Too tired to write much, but basically my stepgrandmother was very gracious. Southern folks are so...polite. I have no idea what she really thought of me, but she was just as nice as can be.

We ate at a restaurant, went antiquing, drove around to show her the neighborhood, then came back to my house for tea and scones.

Antiquing. What a pasttime. I learned who keeps those folks in business. She spent over $300 in less than an hour.

She also mentioned in passing that she has to keep working in order to afford her mega estate down south. I guess even kajillionaires feel strapped for cash sometimes.

To all the commenters on my original post: thanks for the moral support.

Now I'm going to go crash.

Happy birthday to me

It's official. I am 30.

I'll admit that I'm feeling a little sensitive about my age.

1. Scenario one. Holiday Xmas party. A certain undiplomatic coworker said, "I can't believe it. I never would have guessed it. Are you really only thirty?" There was dead silence for a moment while all 20 people in the room stared at her, agast, and then I said, "Thanks a lot" and everybody started laughing while Ms. Tactless tried to remove her foot from her mouth.

Conclusion: I look old.

2. Scenario two. Tried to get into the building where I work today and the security guard didn't want to let me in because I didn't have a validation sticker on my ID. "But I've been here 3 years and I've never had to get my ID validated before," I said. After going round in circles for a few minutes, it became clear that she didn't realize I was a staff person. She thought I was a college student. You know, like 18-22 years old, give or take.

Conclusion: I look young.

And aside from how I look (did I really have quite so much gray hair last week?) I'm having the stereotypical pity-party. I was supposed to have written at least one critically acclaimed novel by now. I was supposed to be back on the West Coast, not living out here in a polluted Eastern city, unable to stop my accent from changing. I was supposed to have visited South America by now. I wasn't supposed to be the mother of a 3-year-old. I was supposed to have found my footing in my career. I was supposed to have mastered several languages, become independently wealthy by some means or other, and learned how to knit.

And yet both my parents flew in from out of state to celebrate with me. In the morning, my son sang "happy birthday dear mama" in his tuneless way before we had even gotten out of bed. My partner made my favorite kind of cake. I got some very generous gifts but my favorite ones were the smallest--an amaryllis bulb from my friend John, a book of poetry from someone else, a pair of fuzzy warm socks from my stepmom, and a hand-made card from my partner.

So, life goes on. I hope it won't feel weird for very long when I have to write my age on forms. I'm somewhat surprised to be having all the "normal" feelings about turning 30, but at least it was a good birthday.

And another thing about my car

First, my friend called my car a "poor person's car".

Now, my family is ashamed of it! What is up with these people? I mean, I love them, but enough is enough.

Here's the situation. My stepmother is bringing her mother (rich, famous, conservative, and Christian) to meet me and my family. My stepmother has been in our family for about a decade, but her mother has never deigned to meet us before. She has sent my son a few expensive and inappropriate gifts. Now she wants to play Grandma for an afternoon.

So, they're coming to my town. To meet me. And my son. And my son's papa, to whom I am not married. And who is a raging socialist. And a Jew. And an atheist. And they want to have tea at my house. My house that is in a somewhat colorful neighborhood. I will have to go outside and pick up the crack vials off the sidewalk before they arrive.

I hate pretentious rich people, but I love my stepmother, so I am willing to make an effort to be nice to her mother.

The question is, how shall we convey this illustrious personage around while she's here? She's staying at a swanky hotel downtown. At first, she was going to hire a towncar and driver, but now she's saying she wants us to pick her up.

Stepmother: "Could you come pick us up at the hotel? You have a nice car, right?"

Me: "Uh, yeah sure. My car is real nice. It's 13 years old."

Stepmother: "Oh."

Me: "It's a family car. You know. Car seat. Crushed cheerios in the floormats."

Stepmother: "Oh, my."

Me: "The seats are kinda stained."

Stepmother: "Wow."

Me: "A previous owner must have had a dog, because there are a lot of gouges and holes in the upholstry. But it's not too dented up or anything."

Stepmother (weakly): "Really?"

Me: "Hey, it's paid for, and it runs!"

Stepmother: Laughs nervously

Me: "And I just had the brakes done finally."

Stepmother. "I guess that won't work, then. My mother is accustomed to a certain level."

Me (brightly): "Okay, then, I guess she'll just have to hire a towncar. I have a friend who's a taxi driver who might be free, but his car is not what you'd call a town car."

Now, I admit that I might have been a little too graphic in my description of the car, just to provoke her. But come on. I am not going to be paraded before this woman. She can come to my house like any normal person and sit on my thrift store sofa and drink tea. I have nice tea cups. I'll even try to pick up some cream. But I do not want to drive all over kingdom come just to transport this snooty rich lady.

Mostly, I'm mad at myself for being so nervous about this visit. What do I care if she approves of me or not? But I am worried that she will not approve, or that my son will not be dutifully polite enough, or that one of the people from the halfway house down the street will be walking by and stop to chat with her when she's getting out of the car.

Really, I'm worried that my stepmother, who wants so badly for her mother to acknowledge us as family, will be hurt. We don't want to meet Snooty Rich Lady, and I doubt she wants to meet us, but we are all playing along for the sake of my stepmother. What if it all goes horribly wrong?

Don't laugh at my car

I have a question for you: How accurately do you think you can judge people's finances based on what kind of car they drive?

Today I met a friend in the parking garage at the college where we both work. He is going to sell a couple dozen books for me on Amazon and give me a percentage, and we needed to move the books from my trunk to his trunk.

He pulled his shiny SUV up next to my sh**box 1994 Japanese sedan. When he got out of his car, the first thing he said was,
"That looks like a poor person's car."

If I was snappy enough I would have said,
"And your car looks like an overspender's car".

When he's retirement age, I bet he'll wish he'd taken that extra 30 grand he spent on his SUV and invested it. Me, I'm going to drive this thing into the ground, and then I'm going to buy myself another oldie-but-goodie Japanese car.

Lucky, lucky, lucky me

It's been an expensive week.

Brake work on car: $588
Follow-up bill from dentist: $167 (on top of the $215 I paid at the time)

Plus, all the outflow typical of the holiday season.

Fortunately, we had a major windfall in the form of a check from my partner's parents. It was the best kind of gift: unexpected, and with no strings attached. They do this from time to time. I think this is the third major financial gift they've given us in the 5 years we've been living together. They call it "re-distribution of wealth."

Now, if this gift came from my family, I'd be all over it, obsessing over it, tinkering with my calculator, and chopping it up into different savings buckets. This much to retirement, this much to the E-fund, this much to long term savings, this much to charity--quick, before the end of 2006! Gotta think about the tax consequences!

But it's from his family, not mine, so I have to be careful not to take over. I did offer to deposit it, and I immediately sent $4500 of the $5000 total to our ING account "just while we're deciding what to do with it." He was okay with that. But who knows when we'll figure out what to do with it.

Now that we've had unexpected car work and dental bills, I'm glad I kept that $500 back when I sent the rest to savings. It was nice to hand the mechanic the credit card, knowing I'd be able to pay the bill when it comes due without having to sell a kidney.

How in the heck do people survive who don't have the kind of financial leg-up our families have given us? When I asked my sweetie that question this morning at the breakfast table he didn't even look up from serving the baby's breakfast (cheerios and granola and rice milk all mixed together). "They don't save for retirement. They don't travel. They don't buy things. And they have debt."

I guess that about sums it up. It makes me want to give something to somebody who doesn't have the kind of safety net I have.

Throwing a cheap holiday party

Three weekends, three parties at our house. How are we keeping spending in check? They're potlucks, of course.

Last weekend was my son's 3rd birthday party.
This weekend we had a block party at our house.
Next weekend is my birthday party.

Other tips for keeping the costs down:

1. Use Evite or make simple invitations yourself. We used Evite for two of the parties. For the block party, I printed out 50 invitations on my inkjet because I didn't have time to photocopy them. My son helped decorate them with paints and glitter.

2. Bake, don't buy, the treats, even if it means you offer less variety. I'm also a big fan of making a simple main dish, rather than doing something elaborate.

3. Serve food that will make good leftovers, and make extra. I'm always worried about not having enough food, especially when it's a potluck and I'm not sure how much other folks will bring. I provide a main dish, a desert, and juice, figuring any potluck contributions will be embellishment but we won't starve if nobody brings anything. Then for the next two days, when I'm wiped out from throwing the party, I can eat the leftvovers.

4. When people ask what they can bring, be specific. I also like to suggest a category of things and let people decide on the specifics. I say "drinks" or "a side dish", and they can choose whether to make something or buy something. I had one person bring paper goods to one of our parties and she refused to take home the extras. The extras were enough for the other two parties and then some.

5. Don't do party favors, and ask the guests not to bring presents. Who needs more stuff? Besides, if they don't bring a present to your party, you can feel justified in not bringing one to their next party either. We bought a bag of balloons for the kids' party. They didn't even have helium. The kids loved them, and each kid got to choose their favorite color balloon to take home. Total cost? Less than a dollar.

6. Decorations don't have to be elaborate. My Xmas tree cost me $10 from Family Dollar last year. It's small, but it fits on a little corner table and is quite festive enough for me. I decorated a table with the holiday and birthday cards we've received, lit up the Xmas lights (which we leave up all year but only light around the holidays) and voila. The decorations were complete.

7. Don't invite your boss's sister's neighbor's ex-roommate. I always invite too many people. Our housewarming party two years ago had about a hundred people show up. I nearly lost my voice, and I didn't really get to spend any time with my guests. This year, I made sure to keep the guest lists under 25, except the block party, when I knew we'd have a low enough turnout that it would be manageable. It helped that we were having 3 separate parties, so I was able to invite a slightly different mix of people to each party.

Vehicle needed for long term savings

I'm trying to decide what to do with my side income. It's a good problem to have, but it's a problem nonetheless.

Lately, my various online schemes have been doing well, so that I have several hundred dollars piling up in Paypal and Emigrant Direct. What should I do with it? Clearly I want to earmark it for saving, but which of my many savings goals should it go towards?

It seems to me that just dumping it in my Emergency fund or my Roth IRA is the smartest thing, but not necessarily the most fun. Emergency savings and retirement savings both figure in my regular budget. I want to use this money for something deliciously impractical, something that I can't really put into my regular savings program but that is an important savings goal anyway.

In short, I want to use the money to save for my same old impossible dreams: move to a more expensive area, and possibly some day get another advanced degree.

Both goals require some serious long-term savings, because I'm not willing to make the leap to go back to school or move without having a big lump sum to ease the pain. I do have a taxable brokerage account that I hardly ever add to that's supposed to fund these kinds of grandiose lifestyle changes.

Currently, I've got $11,028.22 in the account.
$2,635.39 is in a mutual fund (ticker symbol FBALX)
$7,997.16 is in CDs
The rest is in a money market fund (FPTXX)

The money market fund is paying only 3.05%, so clearly I'm better off leaving the cash where it is, in high-yield a savings account if I'm just going to put it there. But maybe I should consider putting it into the stock market.

This is where my investment know-how really falls short. I can deal with investment decisions for retirement or college because if I screw up I have so much time to recover. But for a major life change that is 3-5 years away? How do I invest for that? And it may be a lot further away than 5 years. I just don't know.

Seems like CDs are my best answer, but that's so boring. I've considered Prosper, which is fun and pays well, but in order to keep the money working you have to reinvest it all the time, so you're always committed 3 years out. It doesn't seem like the right solution here.

Thoughts, anyone?

Got my credit scores today (for free)

Today I got my credit scores and reports from all three credit bureaus.

TransUnion gives me a 775.
Experian gives me a 766.
Equifax gives me a 763.

I have been curious about my credit score, but who wants to pay for such a thing? Today, though, I got a good deal. Through my Cashduck account, I signed up for a 7-day trial with a company called Privacy Matters. The trial membership cost me $2, but I got paid a bonus of $13 for signing up through Cashduck, so I netted $11 and got all 3 scores. Not a bad deal.

The Privacy Matters 1-2-3 thing was interesting, although I don't really believe in paying for a credit monitoring service so I cancelled the membership as soon as I'd pulled and printed out my reports. They had an easy cancellation procedure using keypad prompts over the telephone, but I was a little uneasy because they didn't give me a confirmation number after I cancelled.

After telling me my scores, they gave me some dubious advice about how to improve my score. The advice recommended both increasing the number of open lines of credit I have and closing several accounts. My conclusion: The advice is not really specialized to my account but is general advice, i.e., depending on circumstances, here are some things that have raised some people's scores.

I didn't really feel that this three-in-one report was as comprehensive as the reports you get when you go directly to the company. I pull my free credit report from each of the credit reporting bureaus once a year (one every four months, like most personal finance geeks). There were more accounts listed, and more information about each account, in those reports than in the one I got today. This report, for example, only goes back two years, so you're not seeing the whole picture. (Go to this site to get your free report.)

There weren't any nasty surprises in the reports, altho it was interesting to see closed accounts that I had completely forgotten about. For example, Experian still has an old student loan account that was paid off only two months after I finished college (wow, nearly a decade ago now). I had also forgotten that my gas company reports to TransUnion, so that's on there, too.

There were only four hard credit pulls listed (and they didn't include the ones that I saw the last time I pulled my report 3 months ago). They were four separate inquiries (cell phone company, store charge card I opened, and 2 new credit cards I've opened in the last two years). It looked like in each case the companies only made hard pulls on my report from ONE of the 3 credit reporting companies. I didn't know that. I assumed they'd pull your report from all the reporting agencies, not just one.

If you'd like to see all 3 scores at once without paying for it, it may be worth jumping through the hoops needed to get you there. Sign up for a Cashduck account (yes, this is a referral link), and look for the offer from Privacy Offers 1-2-3. Click on View Offers, and use the dropdown menu to get to Trials. I think it was under the $1 trial section.

Enjoy.

Related posts:
Credit cards: Rewards, credit histories, and more
Index to posts about reward programs

Security risk: Retailers saving credit card info

Did you know that brick-and-mortar stores might be saving your credit card data without your knowing it when you make a purchase?

Today I was shopping with my sister and we went to a store that we visit together about once a month. I was buying a small Xmas gift for someone, and the woman who rang me up asked for my address.

"I'm sure I'm already in there," I said. I leaned over the counter to look at her computer screen and saw that they had my credit card number stored right there in my database record. Sure, the first 12 digits were obscured by asterisks, but the last 4 digits were there. "You store my credit card number?" I asked incredulously. It wasn't even the same credit card I had just handed her, but the one I had used the last time I made a purchase there.

"Don't worry," she said. "You can only see the last 4 digits on this screen. The rest of the number is just for our database."

At this point, I was trying to pretend smoke wasn't coming out of my ears. Everything I've heard about online retail security says that the biggest risk is not that someone will intercept your data when you make a purchase as your number zips over the wires, but that someone will hack into a database that permanently stores your private data. That's why I always say no when online retailers offer to hang onto my credit card so I can spend my money even faster the next time I buy something from them. I had no idea brick-and-mortar stores might also keep databses with my name, address, and credit card number in there. Plus, judging by the age of the computer and the program she was using, their security systems were probably not all that up to date. That computer was at least 15 years old, maybe 20. This may mean it's not even hooked up to a network, which means someone would have to physically break into the store to steal data from it. But I'm still not too thrilled.

I started explaining to the cashier and to my sister why this was a problem. By this time my sister is starting to freak out too. We asked the woman as nicely as we could to please emphasize to her manager that some customers are concerned about the security risk of having their credit card numbers stored in their database. I definitely intend to follow up the next time I'm in there.

What do you think? I work with databases, but I don't know much about security, and thankfully my retail days are long over so I don't have to work with retail databases any more. Do you think I should be concerned? Should I assume that every brick-and-mortar store I shop in is storing my data in a database with dubious security?

It's enough to make me paranoid....

How much do you spend on the holidays?

On this post by Boston Gal, commenters discuss how much they spend on holiday gifts. There's an intersting pattern. Most commenters spent 1-1.5% of their gross income on holiday gifts. Some spend only a couple hundred bucks.

I myself spent about $600-700, or about 1% of my gross HOUSEHOLD annual income. It's a much larger percentage if I look at my income alone, and it helps that my spouse spends exactly $0 on holiday gifts. He tolerates my spending in this area because he's such a swell guy.

How 'bout you? Do you spend the whopping 5% or less of your gross recommended by this USA Today article? Please tell me you don't...

Net worth report, and misc. news

Whew. We've been celebrating our son's 3rd birthday this weekend and I'm wiped out. Friday we brought cupcakes (with green icing) to preschool. Yesterday we went on a special outing to ride a historic steam train with our son's best friend. Today we had a party at our house, including cake (chocolate with pink icing). I'm so tired I can barely stand up.

I'm leaving in a few minutes to pick my mom up at the airport. With all that's been going on, I haven't even had time to put clean sheets on the guest bed. I'm hoping the baby (who I should probably stop calling 'the baby' now that he's three years old) will take a nap so my partner can spruce up the guest room while I'm doing the airport run.

I updated my net worth ($104,208, wow!) but haven't had time to blog about it. I did finally stop guesstimating and looked up the Blue Book value of my car. If I call the condition "good" (and that's stretching it) it's worth a whopping $1200. So I lowered the value in my net worth report, but still had a healthy gain.

The posting will be light around here for the rest of December. My mom will be around, spending time with us and with other family and friends in the area. There's some upheaval at work which means I'll be spending more time away from the office at meetings. This doesn't effect the blog directly, since I don't blog at work, but it means I'll be spending more time getting to and from work-related events. We're having two more parties at our house in the next two weekends. One is a holiday block party and one is a b-day party for me. Then there's that big day looming on the 25th. My shopping is mostly done, but I have a lot of wrapping to do. Plus I have jury duty this month and other assorted craziness. So, I'll do my best to post, but if I only post a couple times a week, you'll know why.