08.27.08
Posted in Recovery, Update, goals, life at 11:50 am by otherdeb
When I started this blog, back in March, what I wanted was a place to share tips and strategies for getting out of debt, regaining my equilibrium and writing.
What I didn’t expect was that it would change my life to the extent it has, and I want to thank all of my readers, subscriber or casual, for that.
I know the thrust of my writing lately has been more about the latter two parts of my description, and I suspect it’s time to play a bit of catchup about the first.
Have I met my original summer goals? No. Between the crisis that ate most of my summer pay, and a few other issues, I have not. However, I have made progress in other ways, that will further my getting those goals met. For one thing, the crisis that emptied my pockets also managed to give me room to negotiate one debt down from almost $14,000 to under $7,000. That’s a good chunk of money I no longer have to worry about, and will be able to use to pay off other debts. I have also cleaned up almost all of the short term loans from my ex (that will finish off this week), and can now go about paying off the stuff he graciously wrote-off to long term. I have paid off a bunch of the smaller loans people have helped me with along the way, although I still have a bunch of those to handle. I have started a freelancing career (part-time for now, but eventually full-time [I hope]) that is bringing in enough money that I no longer feel desperate between paydays. Best of all, I have learned to reduce my wants to things that are reasonable and doable financially, and won’t dig a bigger hole to climb out of. (My birthday presents to me this year were two skeins of really good sock yarn, and two handmade soaps that I cannot wait to get delivery on.) My present from my sweetie was a necklace made by a friend of mine (in advance, before she could sell it to someone at one of the cons she is selling at). Even better than the above is the feeling, because I have been so persistent about not making things worse, is that when a reason to be a touch spendy comes up (like taking two people out for their birthdays on the same day), I don’t have to worry about how I will manage it (I took one to lunch near her office, and the other to tea at my favorite tea room). This, more than anything else, shows how far I’ve come.
Do I still have a ways to go? You bet.
Is it still hard to stay on the path? Sometimes, but not as hard as it used to be, because I can see the results and feel the effects of my doing so a lot more now. Every time we get a utility bill and I don’t have to go, “how the hell am I gonna pay this?”, every time I get a bit of cash into PayPal from my writing and can think about where it would best go to, rather than having to rush to pay something before I get sued; these things tell me that I am well on the way with making the changes and making them stick this time. Not having to dread that every call will be from a collections agent is one of the greatest luxuries I’ve had this year; the other is being able to use either of my debit cards, rather than reaching for the credit cards when I do go to buy something.
Are there still changes to make? Yes. Saving has not become automatic yet, and I need that to happen if I really am serious about having a cushion. It’s even more important as I think of transitioning into full-time freelancing.
Does my attitude towards money still need adjusting? I’m sure it does. It took me almost 53 years to learn the bad habits; I have no illusion that two years of “being good” will wipe them out completely. Just like any other addict, I am in recovery. One day, one decision at a time, until making the right decisions becomes the habit.
Do I still think I can do it? Yes. And I know that the folks who read this are part of why I think that way. Whether I’ve never met you, whether we are online friends, real life friends, or know each other in some way I don’t have words for, you all are part of my support system. Even if you’ve never made a comment, you all are part of what keeps me honest and what keeps me going when it gets kind of rough out there.
As I said at the start of this post, this blog has turned into something I never envisioned. And it has both made and helped me make major changes in my life. People have pointed me to things that have inspired me made me laugh, made me cry, and made me think.
Thank you all.
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08.21.08
Posted in Writing at 9:09 am by otherdeb
This morning, I was reading an excellent entry by Deb at Punctuality Rules! Using Grammar and Good Manners to Save the World. The article is entitled “Do We Need New Spelling?” I was moved to write a sufficiently long comment that I would like to expand on it a bit here. Deb refers to Laura Fitzpatrick’s article “Making an Arguement for Misspelling” (and, yes, that hurt to type) in the current issue of Time. I strongly suggest you read both the article and Deb’s entry so you have the context for what I am sharing below:
Okay, there are a couple of things going on here.
First: While the grammar geek in me screams at improper usage and spelling, the plain fact of the matter is that - for most of linguistic history - there was no such thing as standardized spelling. That has only come about in the last couple of centuries, with the collections of words that eventually developed into the dictionaries we know and love. Language is not something dead that can be codified completely. It lives and evolves o fit the needs of its users.
Second: I started screaming about this back when people started claiming that it was too difficult to understand how to use a semi-colon; I saw that as the first step down a slippery slope, and I still do. I am comfortable with the language as I have learned it. Hell, I still get upset about omission of the final comma in a series. That is my preference. I’m not sure it means I have the right to force that preference on others, though.
Third: If I recall correctly, the first country to start doing away with punctuation in addresses - and in print in general - was Great Britain, so I find it difficult to swallow when someone from there now complains that spelling is too difficult. When I was an administrative assistant at a major corporation, and America was first starting to adopt this trend from the British, I used to go crazy fighting with bosses over which was the proper for to use. My all-too-provincial American bosses could not believe that their European clients did things differently than we did, even though they had the evidence on every envelope addressed to them from Great Britain.
Fourth: Anyone who thinks the primary aim of the American education system was really to educate people well is fooling themselves. It was designed to shape a very diverse group of people into a relatively homogeneous workforce. It succeeded in doing that for a while, maybe; but is not even succeeding at that small aim these days, sadly.
Fifth: I do realize that what seems to me to just be laziness might very well be a real difficulty with learning the rules. I work in a school (and, no, I am not a teacher) where most of the student body are immigrants or the first generation children thereof, and I can understand the difficulty a lot of these kids have with English (even our watered-down American version). In fact, though, many of these kids are illiterate in their native languages as well. And since I do not believe that all of them were born “stupid,” I’m not sure how this can be dealt with.
Did I want to sit and parse sentences as a kid? Heck no. Am I now glad I had to? Absolutely. However, the sad fact is education has become even less about education than about making kids feel good about themselves.
My questions are: If it will hurt a kid’s self-esteem to fail a subject or lose at a gym activity now, how much more will it destroy his or her self-esteem to not be able to get a job that pays more than being a counter-person at a fast-food joint? In a society moving ever more rapidly toward information services and technologies, how will a person who cannot effectively communicate survive?
Standard spelling and grammar evolved for the same reason manners did: to ease interactions between people of a society. Should we toss that away just because it might be difficult for some to master? I think not. Should some variation on them be allowed? Well, language evolves. That is a fact. If it didn’t, we would probably still be speaking some form of Old English (if not some form of the languages that Old English developed from).
Is it distressing to see this happen in our lifetimes? Absolutely; in the same way that it’s distressing to go back to the neighborhood where you hung out as a teenager and find it has changed entirely (mine was New York’s Greenwich Village). People long for certainty and permanence. When something they grew up believing in changes, it can be shattering. This doesn’t mean that all change is bad, but neither does it mean that all change is good. Things do change, however, and since we are all different it is, perhaps, ridiculous to expect us all to adapt at the same rate of speed.
I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not sure that letting language evolve is “giving up the fight to educate our kids.” I’m not sure that spelling and grammar matter as much as *I* was taught they did (as much as it pains me to admit that). I do know that, whether I like it or not, language will continue to evolve and mutate long after I am no longer here to protest it doing so.
There is a game, played among science fiction fans, called “If I Ran the Zoo.” It’s about running a science fiction convention, and how you would handle the various problems and situations that come up in doing so. I am so glad this is not my zoo to run.
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08.20.08
Posted in Equilibrium, Recovery, Update, debt, looking forward, personal finances at 2:37 pm by otherdeb
Neither one of us felt like cooking on Tuesday, so I suggested calling for Chinese takeaway. Roomie asked if I could put up her share of dinner until she could fish some cash out of the bank. I asked why she was out of money five days after she got paid. Well, it seems that she’s been using two credit cards. And that she had written them payments and was waiting to see if they would clear. Notice the last four words of that sentence.
Now, I’m not immediately worried. She has put her share of next onth’s rent into my bank in cash, so the rent is there.
But…
Running credit card balances has gotten her into trouble several times in the past. And, given her history if that is what she is telling me, what is there that she is not telling me. I know she has not set up the online banking she was supposed to - she says she does not want to do so on my computer, but has done nothing about getting hers fixed. And I know she has that loan from her friend coming due soon. She also managed to lose her cell phone again, necessitating an expenditure for a new one (this happens between one and three times a year).
Am I starting to see red flags all over the place? Hell, yeah.
Meanwhile, besides negotiating the halving of one huge personal debt, I have made more progress. I have eliminated a couple of the smaller debts, and continue to pay down my one credit card without putting anything new on it. The freelancing has brought in a bit of cash, which is waiting in a money market account at 2.32% interest until I decide whether to use it to get rid of more debt or switch it to a higher interest online savings account. I’m inclined to pay off the debt first (it would wipe out the credit card balance), but want to talk to a friend who is a financial planner before doing anything.
And in another two weeks, I will order my free annual credit reports, for a real view of what progress I have made.
Am I worried about when the next shoe will drop and what it will be? You bet. Am I doing what I can to prepare for it, so that when it does happen I am prepared to handle it and survive? Yep. Am I continuing toward my goals, so that I will be in less of a bad place when it does happen? Absolutely. And am I allowing (and budgeting for) some stuff so I won’t feel deprived? Yes. Am I looking forward instead of back? Harder to say, but I think so.
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08.18.08
Posted in announcements at 7:11 am by otherdeb
My article, “Getting Unstuck,” has been included in the “Blog Carnival of Observations on Life”, at http://anjamerret.com>anjameret.com. A note though — since this was submitted before my blog got oed, the linke ther points back to the former incarnation of this blog.
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08.15.08
Posted in Recovery, looking forward, personal finances at 9:28 pm by otherdeb
Okay.
I recently posted that it was my next big goal to be able to support myself as a freelance writer when my day job goes away in two years or so.
That being said, there are things that really need to be accomplished before that can happen.
The first, of course, is that my debt needs to be reduced even further than it already has been. One of my larger debts has been reduced by half in return for my helping the roommate out of her various jams this summer, but I still have a credit card balance, virtually no emergency fund, and personal and student loans to deal with.
Fortunately, I have been working this summer as a freelance writer. It’s only beginning to pay off, but if I can keep it up it will certainly go a long way to helping me reduce my current obligations, and even with creating a cushion.
Next thing to think of: Health insurance. When I was twenty and could have gotten away without it, I was working for a firm that paid for it entirely. Now that I’m 55, things have changed greatly. Like many employers, mine allows us to buy health insurance at a fairly reasonable rate and takes it out of our check each pay period. Should I leave my employer, I would be offered COBRA, but that is generally at an exorbitant rate. I will be talking to my financial planner friend about this so that when I have to make the move, I will have something in place.
My job does have a pension, but at best it’s tiny, and I won’t have ten years in by the time this job goes away, so I may have to choose between accepting a smaller payout, or being forced to remain until I do hae ten years in, by which time I will be able to retire with a full pension.
Another thing I need to think about and plan for is housing. There is no way I want to stay with this roommate one moment longer than is necessary. And I would love to be sharing an apartment with my fiance again. Whether or not that can be accomplished is more a function of how soon the bad stuff will fall off our credit reports. Weve both been working hard at getting those cleaned up, and in September I will be able to see how much progress I’ve made. He won’t know until January, but we suspect that there is still a ways to go for both of us, although we have made significant progress this year.
I’m sure there are other things we will have to plan for, and since he’s a musician and I’m a writer, we are both pretty sure that, to keep things where we need them to be to cover our bills and living expenses, there will be a long period of time when we are probably going to be too busy working to spend much time with each other. But we both think that — and, yes, we have discussed this at length — we are headed in the right direction, both individually and as a couple.
So we are waiting, and planning, and trying to think ahead so that when I am ready to make the jump it will be possible.
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08.13.08
Posted in announcements at 5:25 pm by otherdeb
Well, today I have two pieces to mention:
The first, “Ideas for Keeping a Journal”, has gone live at Associated Content. I get paid a “performance bonus” for every thousand views, so if you want to support a not-quite-starving writer, go take a look!
The second, “The Blame Game - How to Bug Out of It”, which is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, “The Blame Game, Or How to Become Your Own (and Everyone Else’s) Worst Enemy”, has been posted at Cathy’s blog, Chief Family Officer. Again, this is a great blog, and if you go there you should check out some of her stuff!
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08.12.08
Posted in announcements at 7:31 pm by otherdeb
A guest post, “The Blame Game, or How to Become Your Own (and Everyone Else’s) Worst Enemy” has gone live at Chief Family Officer. Cathy has a great blog and I hope that after you read my post, you sitck around and read some of hers!
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