What a load of crap

The summer after my junior year of college, I got a job shoveling poop for a living. It's really surprising the things you'll agree to when you are a poor college student. It was like this: I was planning on staying in my university's town during the summer because I was taking 15 credits of classes during July. I needed money to pay my summer rent, and jobs were scarce.

The stable job that I applied to had been advertised as a horse feeder, stall cleaner, and possible horse exerciser. Shoveling crap is not normally my cup of tea, but I had previous horse experience. I mean, I shoveled horse manure every week for nine years. I had ridden horses and trained horses and chased escaped horses and fed horses for all of my 4-H years. I had done it wearing rubber boots, overalls, and plaid flannel shirts. I could totally feed a stable full of horses and lunge them in the arena. I could haul some poop in a wheel barrow.

I started the gig the week after moving into my new place. On a quick visit "home" to my parents, I picked up my old leather gloves and rubber boots, because stall mucking is dirty business. My mother was shocked to learn that I had volunteered myself to shovel manure. I had complained about it all the time as a child. "But I'm getting paid for it now," I told her. Money makes all the difference.

I went to the stable every afternoon and got rid of that poo faster than an expert babysitter changing a dirty diaper. I had to haul in saw dust to lay down on the stall floors. Let me tell you, get a little bit of wind going on, and this is not a fun chore. I filled water buckets, carted hay, and got covered in dirt. By the third or fourth day my blisters turned to calluses, my back hurt worse than a mother who is nine months pregnant with twins, and the amount of sweat that dripped down my body made me yearn for the very moment I could take a cold shower at home. It was hard work. I told myself I was going to get ripped. Surely all of this upper body work was going to make me have the best biceps of my life.

The hardest part of the job was climbing the Mountains of DooDoo Doom. I wish I had a picture, but that would be pretty nasty. Imagine this: an area the size of a small parking lot. Like your dentist's parking lot. It's designated just for horse manure. It's already covered. There's no where else to dump it. The boundary lines are overflowing. So what has been done? A second layer has been dumped. There are two by four boards of wood lain on top of the dried poo, which act as a sort of bridge for the wheelbarrow. But in some areas there is a third layer of crap. You have to push the wheelbarrow up the Doo Doo Mountains in order to dump it. After flipping the wheelbarrow over, the wheel gets stuck and you have to yank it out with a great amount of force. The sun is blazing overhead, your feet are already soaked with sweat in your boots, and the freaking wheelbarrow won't cooperate.

I wondered to myself how high the stable owners would let the manure pile get before they got a tractor and spread the poo out across the rest of their fields. Or whatever it is people do when they acquire six tons of poop. My answer: not during my time of employment. Not that summer. Maybe they would do it before the rain came in the fall. Because getting a full wheelbarrow of crap up a four foot high pile of manure so that you could just dump more poo onto a dried out layer of poo has got to be much easier than pushing a load full up a hill of slippery, squishy, rain saturated poo. And there was nothing easy about doing the job when it was dry out.

Geez, if you are still with me by this point, I'm going to change the direction of this story. I think you get it by now. There was tons and tons of poo.

One of my summer courses was an on-line PE class. I know, right? On-line PE. Why didn't they have that when I was a nerd in high school? We were supposed to keep a log of the exercises we did. I fully counted an hour and a half of shoveling and hauling poop as exercise. Only I made my log say "rollerblading" or "jogging," because that sounded more legit than "hauling crap." I mean, it was back breaking work. The amount of sweat that rolled down my body could have filled the kiddie pool that sat in the back of my townhouse.

Let me tell you, the only thing good about these sorts of tortuous jobs is that they build character. If I include all the work I had to do as a child growing up in the country, add in my summer stable job, and then count a few other life experiences, I would venture to say I have built enough character to construct a ten-story building. I mean, how much character must a person build before they can just enjoy the structure? To stand back and let people admire what has been made?

"This is Joelle. Construction began in 1985 and has continued for the past 25 years. A bit of character was built every consecutive year. In 2007 a large expansion of character was added during a remodel. Due to the work, Joelle's spine has compressed 1/4 of an inch and she now stands at barely five feet tall, but her character building is very much evident through her I-will-finish-this work ethic, seen in all the torturous jobs she's ever held."

You know what one of my favorite moments of satisfaction was? When I moved out of that townhouse and threw those nasty, stinky, well-used boots straight in the garbage, never to be worn again. Because I swore I'd never muck stalls again. We'll see if that lasts. With my luck I'll end up marrying a cowboy who has a whole barn full of horses.

Money Talks

Basically this is a continuation of Wednesday's post. I said I would reveal to you some tips and tell you more about my budget tracking system. Also, somewhere embedded in this post is my credit card number.

I was browsing through last January's post, and it seems like I had the same frame of mind a year ago. I talked about how the envelope money system would never work for me, because I don't want to keep track of receipts and I can't be bothered to write anything down when I'm at the store.

So I'm gonna start by telling you about the trends I noticed after running my year-end-report. As a teacher, I'm basically a pro at data analysis. I've more or less gone bug eyed staring at reports and test results printed in size ten font.

This is what I noticed:

The eating out category shows the patterns of my social life. For example, in October I only spent $9.95, because I was too busy putting in extra hours at work and was immediately going to bed when I got home. In May either I was too lazy to go grocery shopping, or I had a lot of ventures out with friends, because I overspent by 50%. Oops.

I noticed that my gas heating bill peaked in January, but then slowly declined until it got to its lowest point in October. It started to rise again once November hit.

The cost of garbage service increased by seventy cents.

There were only two months where I spent $0 on clothes: April and October.

From January 2010 to December 2010, my bank account profited 79%. I think this is fairly awesome. Nearly doubling my money in one year seems kind of a feat. I doubt it will happen in 2011. Unless of course, I strike it rich and discover I am actually living on top of an oil well.

Now let's chat about some finance tips.

1) I'm going to start out very harsh. If you can't pay off the entire balance of your credit card at the end of every month, you should get the scissors out right now and cut it up. I'm all about using a credit card (they're safer for on-line purchases and some get good bonus point rewards), but it's incredibly important to pay the thing off. Maybe this is bad, but I don't actually know the interest rate on my credit card. It doesn't ever matter to me, because I've never paid a dime of interest on it in my life. The short of it is, don't spend money you don't actually have. This is called debt.

2) Pack your lunch everyday. And vending machines totally are a rip off, so keep a drawer full of snacks at work. I do. My staples are Goldfish crackers and small amounts of chocolate, like Hershey kisses or mini sized candy bars.

3) Pay all your bills on time. If you're really bad about doing things on time, sign up for automatic payments. If you are constantly late paying various bills, there's this thing called a credit score and it gets affected. Plus, who wants to pay interest or late fees? Not me.

4) Buy-one-get-one-half-off still means you are paying 150%. Sure, if it's something I actually need or will use (toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo), I will buy it. But if I buy a shirt for fifteen bucks, I am not going to get another one for $7.50 unless I really really love it and need it. Marketers are always trying to get you to spend more money than you actually would on things. They claim that you are saving, but you are not saving if you spent more than you set out to spend. Don't cave in. Think, "Do I really need two?"

5) Don't pay to waste something. Case in point: I used to buy a bag of spinach every week or two but I usually let half of it go bad. It was only $1.78 or whatever, but I was being wasteful. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I have not packed salad for lunch since the beginning of November. Instead I have a lot of frozen vegetables that I cook instead, because they won't go bad.

I think the biggest thing that helps me is that I check my on-line banking account like every three days and I write down what I spent my money on. When you are aware of your spending, it helps keeps things in check. For me, guilt acts as a good deterrent to irresponsible spending.

Happy $pending and $aving this year.

If you like to talk about money

I like money. Most people do. I really like to keep track of how I spend it, and I like to save it even more. This from the person who does not write down her expenses in a checkbook registry.

I'm really excited because since 2010 is over, I get to run my first year end budget report. I know, right? I started tracking everything on an Excel spreadsheet in spring of 2009, but this is the first year that I can make a complete and accurate year end report. I was really good about keeping track of everything in 2010.

What I'm most interested in is finding out my 12 month average for all my spending categories, and how much I spent during the whole year on one category. Also, I get to see how much money I spent during all of 2010, which is a big slap of reality across the cheek. I also discovered how much money I saved throughout the year.

Abe is thuggin' in an origami hat.

 I don't use any sort of fancy program to keep track of everything. Like I said, I made a spreadsheet on Excel that is tailored to my personal budget. I have a spreadsheet for each month of the year (made into tabs) and about once every two weeks I go through my online banking registry and write everything down. I rarely use cash, because having cash is like free money to me, since I can't see it show up later on my online banking. All I know is I took forty bucks out of the ATM on whatever date. Who knows what I spent it on. So I usually pay for everything on my debit card, because it leaves an electronic paper trail.

In case you are interested in learning about my budget categories, I'll tell you. If you're not interested in reading about other people's budgets, you should probably just X off of this post right now and go watch a YouTube video. I'm kind of nosy, so if you posted about this, I'd be interested in reading it. But I understand not everyone is interested in the same things.

Anyway, so my budget categories:

Mortgage. Yes! The joys of pretending to be an adult.

Garbage. I get billed ever other month. This also covers recycling, which I take full advantage of, thank you very much. Plus they pick up my yard debris, which I don't have a lot of, on account of how my yard is about as wide as a bowling lane.

Gas. This isn't gas for my car. It's natural gas that heats my water tank and house. Higher in the winter months, or course.

Electric. Thanks, PGE. Lights. Computer. Hair dryer. TV. Blender. All those things suck up energy.

Water/Sewer. Because even though I live in Oregon where the rain hitting my driveway exceeds my daily water usage, I still have to pay.

Internet. Could we live without it?

Phone. I have a cell phone that I never access internet on. And I'm on the family plan. My mother bills me about every two months.

Insurance. Home owners and car. My health insurance comes straight out of my paycheck, so I ignore that.

Household. This covers things like toilet paper, soap, light bulbs, or more popularly, home decor. Like pillows and bookshelves and beautiful things.

Gym. Got to work on my fitness.

Auto/Gas. Flat tires, dead batteries, hit and runs, fuel, headlights, doorhandles-- everything that can go wrong usually does. Actually, my car is pretty faithful. I like it.

Groceries. Winco, baby. Can't afford to shop at Roth's or Safeway or FredMeyer. Take my own bags to help Mother Earth.

Eating out. I rarely do this because I feel like it's a giant waste of money. I mean, four bucks for a baked potato when they're worth like, twelve cents? I mostly have to keep in mind that I am paying for the atmosphere and company. Otherwise it's totally not worth it.

Personal. This is kind of a broad category, and it covers not only things like haircuts, massages, toothpaste, doctor and dentist visits, oral surgery, cough syrup, and prescriptions, but also apparently Blockbuster movie rentals, according to March 2010.

Clothes. Because nakedness is only attractive on some people.

Retail. Basically this should be renamed the Target category, because that's where most of the money goes. I could divide the receipt up into all the other categories, but I usually don't and it gets lumped into this. Like, if I go to Target and buy toilet paper, a toothbrush, a t-shirt, and something for my classroom, I don't separate it all out. I probably should. Maybe that will be a 2011 goal.

School. This isn't college tuition anymore, it's the money I spend on my classroom. I mostly buy books for my students to read, or other various teaching equipment, like cast iron rulers.

Tithe. God has blessed me immensely. And my church is awesome.

Other. Sometimes things just don't fit anywhere else you know?

Okay, so I was fully planning on telling you some money tips and more about how I track things on my budget, because I really do consider myself fiscally responsible, but this post is getting kind of long and your attention span is getting kind of short. So we'll finish tomorrow. Finance nerds tune in, or you know, if you're an identity thief and you want to get a hold of my credit card number.

The Last September

I think this may be the last September. I pray to God that it will be. I had hope that things would take a turn for the better, but instead we've turned a sharp corner and rammed straight into a pile of garbage cans. I'm not sure how much longer my voice will hold out. I was on the elliptical at the gym (first time in about 5 weeks), thinking that maybe this is the last September I will need to prepare for. That my last first day of school may have passed for good. That this could be it.

If you have a child who goes to school, then I hope you pray for their teacher. They need it more than anything. God bless teachers, they are abused. I did the math and I get paid $0.81 to teach each child per hour. If I had a child, I think I would be willing to spend much more than that. I mean, heavens, would you hire a tutor for your child who thought 81 freaking cents was fair? I would pay more and I would request that their class size was no larger than 15. Teachers can't save everyone, we just can't.

I did some more math and did a very low-ball estimate that last year I spent an extra 245 hours at school. Minimum. That is the equivalent to 30 work days. Would you want to work for 30 days for free? I mean, lord, try paying your rent with that kind of wage. 

I'm not trying to make myself out to be a martyr. I'm just telling you that I don't think I can last much longer. I keep thinking back to a book I read about time and finances, and how you need to tell yourself "I am not on sale." Because I swear, everyone seems to think teachers are on sale. That we should go for a bargain. And we do. You are getting a damned good deal.

But enough of that. Let me tell you about how recently I have been consuming a lot of Dove chocolate, because 1) the chocolate is divine, and 2) the wrappers have little messages that I sort of take as cryptic letters from God or whatever. I kept this one that said "What would you do if you could not fail?" Because what would I do? My word, I have a list. It's the list that excites me to think about, the list that makes me bubble with joy to think about.

And I think to myself, what would I give to get out? What would I do to rescue myself from this? I think about how much time I have wasted not doing what I love, and of how much time I have spent trying to do something that I thought I would love. And I think of how I have failed.

I am not usually one to give up. But there comes a point when you need to realize it's just not worth it. This September is it.

Smash that piggy bank

When you were a kid, did you ever pull up the orange-and-avocado-flower-print-70s-style couch cushions in order to look for loose change? Because you really needed that My Little Pony and had no money?

Well, since feeding the ATM machine my debit card, I am currently looking for cash money so that I can go to the grocery store. I've managed with (non)-essential* purchases with my credit card so far, but while I wait upon the arrival of my new debit card, it is essential to go grocery shopping. And Winco doesn't take credit. Because, you know, they are really awesome and high class and turn their nose down at that sort of thing.

So here I am, making my minimal list, trying to see what I can buy with $8.49. Or whatever. I didn't really count the cash in my wallet yet, but I am guessing it is around there. I do have a jar full of quarters though, and I might just take that with me to the grocery store. Then I can be that person whom everybody groans about. You know, the one that takes 17 minutes in line.

In the meantime, I've been really domestic around the house. Like, I scrubbed my shower with Fiber-Fab and then I even sealed it with white goop. I scrubbed the tile of my bathroom because I wanted to seal it too, but I'm still trying to get those dumb white grit marks out of the indentations. And I washed my rug. And potted some (fake) plants that look super real, because I tricked Kaitlynn with them yesterday. They were the expensive fake kind that look really real. Like you could almost pretend they smell like tulips and not some sort of polyurethane. I also hung a clock in the living room and a fancy shmancy mirror in the dining area. What I really need to do today is plant some grass seed outside, because I've been putting it off since approximately September 22nd, 2009. Since it just rained it is probably a really excellent time to plant some grass seed.

I also learned how to make these whimsical flower decorations. Is any one having a party soon? Can I make some for you?

Today reality needs to give me a good slap in the face, because I haven't done any school stuff and I need to teach the little buggers in 4 days, counting today. Boo.

You know the whole cash problem? I suppose I could pay with a check, but who does that anymore? And that wouldn't be as fun as digging through the couch cushions. Because hey, I found the remote.



*non-essential credit card purchases include things like t-shirts from Forever 21 and organizational structures from Ikea.

The ways I spend money

I originally wanted to name this post "Dolla Dolla Bill Psychology," but I thought my casual gangster slang might ruin my credibility. Plus, I took the silver grill out of my mouth when I edited. Thus, the responsible (yet boring) "The ways I spend money."

Let me preface this post by saying that while I typically consider myself good at managing my money, I will be honest and admit I practically fell off a financial cliff during December, so I am glad it is a new month and a new year so I can start fresh again. I basically felt like December didn't count, so I was spending loads December 28th-31st, thinking that I could just wipe it from my brain in January. But I'm usually never like that, really.

I've been reading a plethora of new blogs over the break, and a lot of them have New Year Resolution/goal posts (but not the kind you find in football). I admit, I will likely post a bit of something on such a topic in the near future. What I find interesting is the number of people who are aiming toward debt-free goals, and one of the ways they try to achieve this is through "the envelope system".

Don't get me wrong. I think a debt-free goal is fabulous. I wish my mortgage was all paid for. But this envelope system, it would never work for me. The whole concept is that you plan a budget, then take out all the cash you would need and put it in an envelope. For example, you have your grocery envelope with all the cash you plan to spend, your gas envelope, your entertainment envelope, etc. The people that do this say that it works because then they can't spend more than what they budgeted for. Makes sense, I guess.

I would fail at this. It's reverse psychology for me. I feel like cash is free money. I purposely try not to keep more than twenty bucks in my wallet because I don't feel guilty about spending the cash in my wallet. I feel like it is extra money. I feel like cash spent is money unaccounted for. Unless you are awesome at keeping receipts (I'm not), then you don't know where your money went. It's like "Okay, I know I started the week with fifty bucks, but now I only have 17 and I can't remember what I bought." Because, oh darn, the receipts were in my pocket that just went through the wash.

This is what I do:
I always use my credit card to pay for gas, and I always pay off the full amount at the end of the month so I never pay interest.

I try to pay for everything else on my debit card. The reason I do this is because it's all recorded for me on-line. I can't forget where I spent that thirty bucks, because I can log in to my on-line banking and see that I spent it at Target. I am compulsive about checking my on-line account. I do it at least twice a week. I am reminded week after week, month after month, of where I spent my money. I can't forget it, like I would if I just paid cash. For me, there's more accountability. Plus, it's easier to keep track of one debit card than it is to keep track of six envelopes or whatever. Plus, I like that my on-line spending report automatically categorizes for me. I can see how much I spent on gas, groceries, utilities, clothes, office supplies, health care, insurance, etc. etc.

If you are concerned about spending what you don't have, then just make sure there's not more money than what you want to spend in your checking account. Keep the extra in your savings account. But this is just me. I know the envelope system works great for some people. I just know I could never get it to work for me.

Interesting blogs:
Man Vs. Debt This guy and his wife (and daughter) barely own anything and are traveling around the world.

Samantha over at Mama Notes just posted this link to Enemy of Debt.

The cost of convenience

The ATM stole my money. Or rather, it asked permission first and I said yes too fast before I realized what was happening, like how what's-her-face got impregnated at camp on The Secret Life of an American Teenager. I was depositing some checks and I realized I needed stamps so I could mail some of my bills (you know, the old school ones that don't have an option to pay on-line, like to the garbage service, which has a really sketch barn type building out in the middle of a bunch of fields).

Going to the post office was out of the way and a pain, so I punched the button that yes, I would like to buy stamps. The screen came up and I selected 18 stamps, mostly because they didn't have an option for seven. Then I quickly clicked yes again on the next screen, because I was super hungry and wanted to go home and eat. It was after I punched the yes that I briefly scanned the small print telling me that the stamps were valued at $7.92, though I was paying $9.54 for them. Crap. Too late to go back. The machine spit out my stamps and I went out to my car to do the math.

Each stamp had a service charge of nine cents. That was ridiculous. That was twenty-percent of the cost of a stamp. I was being charged 120%. I was rather outraged for a while, but the closer and sooner I got to my house, I realized it was sort of worth $1.62 to not go to the post office. I mean, I'd have to spend my time driving there and waiting in line, and I would have to burn gas to get there as well. Nevertheless, I am hoping these 18 stamps last me a long time.

P.S. Can we talk about how I didn't go to work today because I was sick, and even though I had 8 extra hours to get grading and planning done, I still did not finish my PDP and yearly goals, even though they were due to my principal two weeks ago? Though really, why should I work on my sick day? But I fully graded 23 writing samples, did GLAD unit planning, and filled out weekly progress reports for my kiddos. All while in bed, sneezing out yellow snot and drinking OJ. Do you like how I make myself feel guilty, and then try to justify my actions to you? I am pretty sure there is a psychology term for this.