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If I Ran the Zoo…(Just how important are proper spelling and grammar, anyway?)

(This is a repost of an entry I wrote on 21 Aug 2008.)

This morning, I was reading an excellent entry by Deb 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 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.

“A, B, C, It’s Easy…” – Jackson Five, Part I – Journal-Keeping for Everybody

(Originally posted 6 June, 2008)

Journals, or blogs, no matter how frequently or infrequently posted to, are one of the great joys of a conscious life. (Having said that, I suppose I should explain what I mean by a conscious life. To me, living a conscious life means not taking for granted the things people tell me. It means examining my beliefs to make sure they are mine, and not just handed down to me by parents, teachers, etc. It means thinking about my views on things, and putting my beliefs and values into action.)

Private or public, they are a place to record the minutiae of daily life; reflect on insights; note memorable quotations, passages from books, poems, or songs; mark occasions; track progress on personal (or work) projects; and rant, rave, or otherwise work out solutions to problems and coherent opinions on troubling issues.

Marvelously flexible, paper journals can be (depending on their size) tossed into a purse, briefcase, or luggage; tucked into a pocket; or hidden in a drawer (or under a pillow, or on a shelf). They can be hard-bound, spiral-bound, or custom-bound; cloth-covered, paper-covered, plastic-covered, or cardboard-covered; lined or unlined; large or small; expensive or inexpensive – whatever suits your fancy!

Blogs, while not quite as portable yet as paper journals, have other advantages: ease of editing; legibility; ease of sharing (if you choose to share) over large geographical areas; ease of incorporating research results, pictures, and articles from the World Wide Web; and ease of storage (if you back up your blog, thumb drives and CD-ROMs take up a lot less space than physical notebooks).

So, after you decide whether to use paper or to go online, the next question is what to fill your journal with. In either case, the possibilities are almost infinite. I’ve filled my paper journals with photos, ticket stubs, cards and letters, drafts of stories, poems, laundry lists, reminders, and quotations; and my online ones with news, photos, memories, short fiction of the fannish variety, reminders, birthday shout-outs, and quotations.

There are a number of books on journal-keeping, which offer a treasure trove of ideas, journal rituals, pointers, and tips. Two of the best books of this kind are Tristine Rainer’s The New Diary, and Kathleen Adams’ Journal to the Self. (There is another classic in the field, Ira Progroff’s At a Journal Workshop, but that introduces a whole, complex system for organizing and keeping a journal in sections, which is a bit beyond the scope of this article.) Both are inspirational and, with Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, some pre-Internet books on researching, and a number of excellent books from Writers Digest, form the basis of my writing library. A lot of what I learned about making a paper journal truly your own has come from these two books.

To my mind, there is one huge advantage to online journal-keeping: its social aspect. While I admit to still being wary of putting anything online that I would not want to see blazoned as a headline in my local newspaper, there are social aspects that are just too alluring to resist, including getting photography advice from professional photographers; met writers whose work I adore; gotten excellent writing advice from editors and writers; had superb support systems when the lemons life handed me stubbornly refused to turn into lemonade; had fun and learned about friends with the odd meme; gotten information about places that tourists might miss in a town while I was still planning my itinerary; and found a whole new group of online acquaintances with whom journal-keeping was just one thing I had in common.

Now I want to note the greatest secret of journal-keeping: while it is an ongoing commitment, the one thing that there are no hard and fast rules about is the frequency of posting! I’ve heard so many people say some variation of “I’d love to do that, but I don’t have the time to write every day.” You don’t have to write every day! Some folks do, of course, but your frequency of posting is totally up to you. Julia Cameron, in her excellent twelve-week course, The Artist’s Way, recommends doing three pages each morning, which I did when I did the course. In real life, however, my journal-keeping varies wildly. During the school year, for example, when I get up absurdly early, I may only make one or two catch-up entries in any given month. If I’m writing a story, or working through a difficult real-life situation, I might go through a whole notebook in that span of time.

Again, the key is to make your journal your own by amassing a “tool box” of tips and tricks, and using them as needed.

If you thought about keeping a journal, but decided against it, what stopped you? If you choose to rethink the decision, what are some creative solutions to the challenges?

If you do keep a journal, do you use paper, post online, or some combination of the two? Are you posting as much (or as little) as you want? What can you think of to facilitate doing so?

Personal Financial Tipping Point

(Originally posted 3rd June, 2008)

Today, Free from Broke, did an excellent article re personal financial tipping points.

As I’ve noted earlier, mine came when I found out that my roommate had not been paying her mother (who writes our rent checks because the Landlord will not accept checks from my roommate because of the “high latex content”) her share of the rent for over four months.

After all the histrionics between her mother, her, her best friend, and me had died down, I did a lot of thinking. Not only did I never want to be in that situation again, but I realized that (other than my fiance) I really do not want to be sharing living space with anyone. After a long hard look at my own actions (avoiding paying creditors, spending beyond recklessly, eating out 6-7 times a week, taking cabs almost everywhere), I decided to take action. The first thing I did was to go to annualcreditreport.com, and got copies of all three credit reports, so I could see just how deep the hole I was in was. I then called my creditors and made agreements (all of which I kept). I stopped buying books — totally for a while, now only using gift certificates and buying used at that.

It’s been a long two years since then, and I have paid of all but one credit card (and that is well on its way to being paid off). I am working my way to freedom, and it will take about two years to get there.

My roommate still screws up, but I recently found out that that is because she does not want to be responsible for her finances. She says she wants someone to make it all go away and take responsibility for her, but refuses to let anyone actually do so. My ex sent me a spreadsheet so she can track her checking account, and she refuses to fill it in herself, or let me do it. She now claims that she thinks she could let my ex do it, because working with him will be less “emotionally painful,” but I bet when he shows up she will find more excuses.

Yes, I am angry about the situation — things that I could have put money toward have had to wait as, in order to keep a roof over my head, both her mother and I have had to cover for her. However, I know that this is temporary, and that once my credit reports are clear enough to not scare off Landlords, things will change drastically!

Disorder within Order, or Vice Versa?

(Originally Posted 3 June 2008)

B Nelson has a wonderful article over at Gomestic called “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, Or Is It?”.

It briefly and succinctly explains why a touch of disorder in our lives is not necessarily a bad thing.

I thought about it, and pretty much the only thing I am presently unwilling to be disorderly about is my finances, because right now I am still learning, and correcting problems I created for myself.  I do, however, look forward to one day not having to watch every penny quite as rigorously, while still not straying from my goals.

What are you unwilling to be a touch disorderly about?  Why?

"Making a List, Checking It Twice"

(Originally Posted 2 June 2008)

Most people who know me know that one of my passions is journal-keeping. I’ve been keeping a journal since somewhere around my fourteenth birthday, when I was given – like many girls of that age and time – a copy of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and one of those little mock-leather-covered diaries with a key and a lock that supposedly kept it private but could be picked by any enterprising mother with a hairpin.

I outgrew that book pretty quickly, and graduated to a set of blue plastic post-and-bar report covers, where I could, by reversing the direction of the post and bar, add pages of looseleaf paper in chronological order as quickly as I could fill them. And fill them I did.

I wish I still had that binder. It was about four inches thick and full of the dreams, anguishes, and triumphs of my teen/young adult years. However, my mother destroyed it because she was afraid my father would find it. And, while I actually understood why, it’s the one thing that took the longest to even begin to forgive her for doing.

In 1979, I moved into a women’s hotel in Manhattan. A friend had introduced me to the New Age movement and I was taking a lot of courses, all of which not only required extensive amounts of “navel-gazing,” but writing reams about the insights acquired thereby. I find a lot of my writing from that time painful to look at now, but I keep it because it does reflect – for good or ill – where I was at the time.

Eventually, I ended up on the Internet, and started a small writing career (science fiction/fantasy short stories). While I still kept the bulk of my journal on paper, I led some workshops for an online writers’ group on journal-keeping for writers. I got a lot of positive feedback about these workshops, but never managed to figure out how to move to the next step, so that was pretty much where my journal-keeping remained.

Now, of course, a journal does not have to be kept on paper. While some folks still prefer paper journals, lots of others take advantage of blogging websites, such as LiveJournal, WordPress, and Blogger; others prefer to use areas set aside for such things on special-interest websites like SparkPeople; and some folks just set aside a part of their personal webpage.

Still, the main question regarding journal-keeping is more about what to write than where to write it. This series will explore a bit of both in three articles, discussing:

• 
  
  Journaling for everyone,
• 
  
  Journaling for writers, and
• 
  
  Tips and tricks for journaling.

Do you keep a journal? Would you like to? Would it be a general-purpose one, or would it be for a specific project or subject?

“It’s My Life, I Can Do What I Want” – “I’m Crying” – Eric Burdon & The Animals

(Originally Posted 29 May 2008)

An online friend and I were discussing some upcoming changes in her life revolving around her church, and the conversation turned to how one acquires one’s beliefs. We both had experimented in the past, and finally returned to what we grew up with, and tossed around a few concepts, such as that when you have removed all the things you are not, what is left is what you are; and that unexamined belief is a scary thing.

Well, in further thinking about the second concept, it seems to me that a lot of us get into, and stay in, financial difficulties because of unexamined beliefs. Since the beliefs vary according to each person, I’m not going to go into them right now. I am, instead, going to concentrate on how we can make more conscious choices regarding our finances and futures.

It’s very easy (and very comfortable) to just keep on doing what we have always done. The problem with that is that, often, people do what they have always done and wonder why they get the same results they have always gotten. This was driven home to me the other day when a friend was writing out a check to renew a subscription to a magazine. Now, for most of us, this would not be a problem, but: 1) Her account was overdrawn and her paycheck had not dropped. 2) Even if #1 were not the case, she has no clue ever as to how much is in her account at any given time. 3) Further, she has no idea as to which creditors are going to take out how much from her account or when they will do it. I asked her why she was spending money she didn’t really have, and it brought her up short. She had not realized she was doing that. We ended up having a talk about decision-making, and how learning to stop and think and make choices, rather than running on automatic, might affect her finances.

My point is that wanting to get out of debt is useless without examining what you are doing that keeps you in debt. It’s not easy to do, and not pleasant, but it is the way to go. As with unexamined religious belief, it’s easy to just go on in the same manner you always have, but then your efforts are really empty. Even having a real desire to get free from debt is not enough to accomplish that goal. What will get you there are conscious choices.

Now, hopefully you want to know what I mean by that. I mean that getting out of debt is the result of a series of small choices, made at every step of the way. Those small choices eventually build into a major shift of your attitudes, and to more actions which further your goal.

It can be as small a decision as putting the money you might spend on a latte toward one of your bills instead, or paying off one small debt each paycheck. It can be looking to see why you make the decisions you do. It can be making a list of all the debts you owe – even the personal ones that your friends are willing to wait for years for you to get around to. Each small decision – each small, conscious choice – helps build a foundation from which to make the next one. And, each small victory is a step on the way to leading your life – not as an echo of someone else’s life – but the way you want to live it.

What are two small changes you can make in your life (or in your spending) that you think could have big effects further down the road?

An Introspective Moment

(Originally Posted 26 May 2008)

Okay, I wasn’t tagged for this one. But the “big kids” on the block seem to be reflecting on where they were ten years ago, and the idea intrigued me, so here goes, although I changed the time frame to look back fifteen years:

1993: I had just left another pointless secretarial job. I was in debt up to my kiester, and walking with crutches as a result of falling on the same ankle six times in five months. Although I had a lovely little attic apartment, I could not climb the stairs to get to it and was living on the couch of some friends. Those were the major bad points.

There were some good points. I sold my first story (“Geniecon”), and it was published in a Mike Resnick/Martin H. Greenberg anthology: Aladdin: Master of the Lamp. I then sold two more, joined SFWA, and realized that I was hardly the worst writer out there. I attended my first Worldcon, where I got to meet a lot of the writers I had been talking with online.

I was also in total financial denial. The friends I was staying with loaned me money for Worldcon when my wallet was stolen on the way to the Amtrak station. My credit cards were maxed out. My Unemployment checks were barely enough to cover my rent, even though they were the highest bracket my state granted. My checkbook was a mess. (And, yes, the series on acquiring and maintaining a checking account is based on things it took me decades to become rigorous about!) I had a depression that was at least the size of Minnesota, because all I could see was that everything was falling apart, and I had no clue where to attack the mess.

Contrast that to now: I’m thinking of leaving my current job in five years so that I can work independently. I am doing the type of writing I wanted to, even though I have not yet turned it into an income stream. Not only are my credit cards not maxed out, but only one of them has any balance left on it, and I just cut up the one that charged me the highest interest. I have a (admittedly) very tiny emergency fund, and am planning how to grow that. I am, by no means, out of the woods yet, but for the first time I can see the clearing beyond the trees.

What created the changes? The first thing is that I finally stopped deluding myself, and took a long, hard look at what I owed, and at what I was facing. I then gave some real hard thought to my life. What I found was that in any area but financial, my word was good as gold. When it came to finances, however, I would say anything or do almost anything to get what I needed. Further, I was very good at excuses and at avoiding being accountable for my actions. I was also living way beyond my means.

Sometimes, I still find myself struggling to keep my word on things financial. There were, however, several good reasons for me to do so. A lot of my growing up had to do with my roommate’s shortcomings: One of us had to start, and it was pretty clear it was not going to be her. Another motivator was meeting my fiancé: Once we decided we were serious, we also decided that neither of us wanted to foist our financial baggage on the other. The biggest motivator was, of course, that I got tired of living the way I was. I want to be truly independent, and the only way I could do that was by clearing up my act.

I won’t say it’s easy; it’s not. There are times I wish I could just buy what I want, and not think about whether or not I can afford it. But right now, this is the way it is, and – in the long run, which is what counts – it will be to my benefit.

Am I glad I’ve made the changes I have? You bet. Would I do it again? Yep. Do I wish I had not needed to? Absolutely. Still, the hardest thing to do sometimes is to let go of the past, and move forward, and I see progress along those lines. And that feels better than anything I could buy myself.

What do you see when you look back? Have the changes you have made been primarily positive? What small steps are you looking at taking to move forward in your life?

A Milestone of Sorts

(Originally Posted 24 May 2008)

I was going to wait until Monday to post this, but I am so happy that I was finally able to cut up my first credit card that I wanted to post the letter I sent the company.

—————————————–

My address

24 May, 2008

$EVILBANK

Re: VISA Account Number

Gentlemen:

Since repeated efforts to negotiate a lower interest rate or to remove the monthly fee charged in addition to the annual fee have failed, I am enclosing, per your instructions, my cut up credit card.

Please terminate the above account, effective immediately  I have already made the May payment of the $8 service charge, and expect that there will be no further charges of any sort to this account.

Sincerely,

Deborah J. Wunder

—————————————–

The roommate was with me for the ceremonial cutting up of the card and reading of the first draft of the letter.  We are both hoping there will be many more of these as we both get our acts in order.

What constitues a milestone for you on your journey?  If not a formal milestone, what are the things that make you feel the ride is worthwhile?

Checking Basics 101 – Maintaining Your Checking Account

(Originally Posted 22 May 2008)

Okay. You now have a checking account. If you have decent credit, you might even have one with bells and whistles, such as interest, low fees, overdraft protection, or some combination of the above. The next step is learning how to use it to minimize charges and prevent returned (“bounced”) checks.

The first step is to know the rules, provisions, and charges that go with your account. Yeah, this means, in plain English, READ THE DAMNED FINE PRINT! Seriously. It’s how you will know how long it will take for your deposits to become available, what fees your bank or credit union will charge for various services, whether or not you need to maintain a minimum balance and how much it is, what penalties will be assessed for returned checks or being overdrawn, etc. For example, my credit union has an online bill-pay service that is free as long as you schedule at least one payment per month through it. For any month you do not do so, you are assessed a $5.00 service charge.

Your next step is even more self-evident: Do not write a check unless the funds to cover it are both IN YOUR ACCOUNT and AVAILABLE FOR USE. In 1987, Congress passed The Expedited Funds Availability Act, which sets rules as to how long banks may hold your deposit before clearing it for your use; in 2003, they passed The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, which effectively did away with the float (the delay between when a check is presented for deposit by a payee and when the money is actually deducted from your account).

Further, at the end of the day some banks process debits to your account before credits, so if your deposit and a check written against it hit your bank the same day, your check might be returned or paid against uncleared funds. Regardless of whether the check is returned or paid, you will be charged. My roommate’s bank charges $5.00 less if it pays the item than if it returns it, but those charges still mount up. Also, if only part of your deposit is available, or if your deposit was made after whatever your bank declares to be end of day for deposits, the same problems may occur. Not only that, but they may cause shortfalls in your account, creating a nasty snowball effect (of more checks bouncing and more charges levied against your account) that can rapidly become an avalanche!

Next, you need to know WHO is going to debit your account directly, HOW MUCH they will take, and WHEN they will take it. This means that any time you set up a payment plan wherein a third party (collection agency, phone company, Internet loan shark, etc.) will debit your account directly, you must not only know how much they are supposed to take, and when they will do so, but you must follow up by checking your account each time to ensure that only the agreed-upon amount was taken. Further – and this seems to be where many people have problems – you must record each of these transactions in your check register. If you don’t, you will neither have an accurate picture of what is in your account at any moment, nor be able to balance your checkbook.

As you can see, maintaining a checking account requires nothing more than common sense and consistent record-keeping. Once you have acquired those habits, balancing your checkbook, which I will cover in the next part of this series, is easy.

Checking Basics 101 – Acquiring a Checking Account or Functioning Without One

(Originally Posted 19 May 2008 )

One of the most important tools for getting yourself out of debt is a continuallybalanced checkbook. (Please note that I did not say a bounteous checking account, although that helps!) This requires that you actually have a checking account, or develop a way to function without one.

For many of you, having a checking account is something you take for granted. However, there are those of us who – for one reason or another – have not only lost our checking accounts, but have been reported to ChexSystems (the banking equivalent of TransUnion, Equifax and Experian). For us, acquiring a checking account becomes an exercise of the same approximate ease as finding the Holy Grail.

For those of us in this position, there are two alternatives (which are not, actually, mutually exclusive).

First, you can develop ways to survive without a checking account. This can take some creativity on your part, but here are some things I did to survive without having to continually pay out fees to pay things.

• You can pay to buy money orders for everything. The advantage: you will have a receipt for your payments. The disadvantage: you will pay anywhere from $.75 to $3.00 for a money order. These fees mount up very quickly.
• You can use an agency to cash your paychecks. The advantage: if you have a government or corporate paycheck, this will give you quick easy access to your money. The disadvantages: check cashing facilities ALWAYS take a percentage of your check as a fee. For my checks, which were in the $560 range, this meant I was giving the check cashing facility $7-8 per check. Again, these fees mount up. Also, these places will only cash certain types of checks. If a friend offers to help you out, for example, you will not be able to cash his check. Further, these places often have time limits as to how long you can hold a check before cashing it. Most will not honor a check more than thirty days after the date it was issued.
• You can ask a friend to cash your paychecks and other checks you receive. The advantage: no fee. The disadvantages: your friend will know what your income is. Also, unless you have an exceptionally supportive friend, he or she may get tired of doing you this favor. Further, his or her bank might not want to take a third-party check.
• You can ask a friend to write checks for you. The advantage: no fee. The disadvantages: you will pretty much need to have the money in hand to give to your friend when asking (or at least have a definite date when you will put the cash in his or her hand). And, as above, your friend may tire of having to keep writing checks for you.

While you are doing the above, you should be researching the second alternative: acquiring a new checking account. First, there is an interesting article here that you should read. The author has been through the process and has a good idea of what you are up against. The main thing to remember is to avoid any site that wants to sell you a list. The lists are on the Web for free. A Google search on “ChexSystems victims” provided more than ten pages of resources.

If all else fails, there are a ton of websites that will sell you the lists, but they tend to ask $50 to $100 for a list. Again, since you can – with a bit of patience – find the information yourself, I don’t recommend this.

What I did was to look for banks and credit unions in my area. I found that all the banks did use either ChexSystems or Telecheck, but that many of the local credit unions did not. I also found that some banks would open a savings account without using ChexSystems, but these were the exceptions rather than the rule. Credit unions, I found, often had a set of idiosyncratic requirements for opening accounts, but were much more available to folks with problems (for example, the credit union I’m now using only required that I either live or work in Brooklyn, New York, and I do both). Since my job and home are some distance from the credit union, I filled out a form at work to deposit my paycheck directly, and they do so free of charge.

Okay. You have now (hopefully) acquired a new checking account. The next step is to keep that account balanced and functioning in a way that maximizes your money. I will cover that in the next installment of this series.

Just a Note

(Originally Posted 14 May 2008)

Today, I filled out my April 2008 report at NetworthIQ. I have done so sporadically since July 2007. There is some good news, too: Since I last filled out a report in September 2007, I have reduced my debt by $821. Okay, you may say it’s not a lot, but on a salary of under $20,000/ann., I am pretty proud of this.

Further, while my net worth is still negative, it is less so than when I started: Back in July 2007, I owed $59,704; as of this report, I owe $41,122. This is a reduction of $18,582. Again, not bad on a salary of less than $20,000/ann.

Granted, to do this, I have had to get creative. I sold things I was no longer using, switched to the library instead of buying books, started taking surveys online for cash, started taking advantage of free offers, and cutting down substantially on eating out.

Now, I know I still have a long way to go. Next steps are getting my bicycle checked out by a friend, and getting my cycling legs back, so I can cut down on transit spending (not to mention improving my health), paying off that last credit card, increasing my emergency fund, and continuing to figure out ways to generate extra income.

“I Think I See the Light” – Cat Stevens

(Originally Posted 12 May 2008)

First, let me apologize for the unexpected hiatus, and commit to not having that happen again. I had some medical issues which have been (mostly) resolved.

The good news is that I cleaned up another credit card on Tuesday! I cannot tell you how happy that makes me! I have one card with a small balance (under $120), some personal loans, and my student loans to pay off; then I will finally be debt-free for the first time in my adult life!

I’m not kidding myself here. These last bits will not be easy to do; the personal loans come to about $30,000, as do the student loans, but I intend to use the wonderful snowflake method described at I’ve Paid for this Twice Already to attack them.

Fortunately, I had consolidated my student loans just before the government tightened up on them in 2005 and, when I ended up in a job that paid one-third of what my former job did, I was able to put the consolidated loans into forbearance. I don’t recommend doing this because, while you are not paying on the loans, interest continues to accrue, but it was the best choice I could make at the time.

So, my current plan (once that last credit card is cleared up) is to pay down as many of my personal debts as possible before the student loans come out of forbearance at the end of this year, alternating loan payments with emergency fund deposits. Realistically, this means it will be about three and a half years to four years before I will be completely debt-free. Given that I have spent the last thirty-five years in debt of varying sorts, I think I can wait to finish the process.

Requieskitty in Peace – an Interim Post

(Originally Posted 9 May, 2008)

This entry is in loving memory of Furball (1988-2008), who was about the best feline a human could have been owned by.

Very early this morning, I had to take my beloved Furball to be put to sleep. It was, of course, traumatic; not the least because he had been with me through four apartments, two relationships, temp work, homelessness, and several serious medical issues. The actual process was quick and peaceful. He was given a shot, closed his eyes, sort-of sighed and was gone, with me petting him the whole time.

His greatest gift to me, however was his last. What I got to realize throughout the episode was that if this had happened, oh, two years ago, I’d have been calling everyone I knew to borrow money to pay for it. Not only that, but doing so would have sidelined me financially for a fairly long time.

This time it was different. My roommate contributed the fare for the taxis to and from the hospital (about half an hour away by car), but I didn’t have to ask any of my friends for money. Yes, I had to use a credit card to pay for it, which I would have preferred to not have to do. However, I did not have to use any of the credit cards that I had paid off. And the card I did use, which I had mostly paid down, was not maxed out after I used it (and is now resting in my desk drawer, where it will stay until it, too, is paid in full).

Okay, it’s a small victory, and it would have been much nicer to have a cash emergency fund to take the money out of instead, but that will come. The main thing is that I was able to handle the emergency without the usual anxiety that accompanies not having the resources to do so.

Thank you again, Furball. I hope that wherever you are you have a soft bed, nice company, and all the mice you want to chase.

"Cleaning Out My Closet" - Eminem

(Originally posted 7 April 2008)

Part III

So, when I finished the last installment I had acquired the tools for starting to climb out of the mess:

1. A working checking account,
2. A working savings account,
3. Agreements with all but one creditor, and
4. A cheering section of friends (both online and in real life) and my sweetie.

I was ready to start digging. First, I called the student loan company. I had been smart enough to consolidate the loans, and had put them into forbearance for a year, and they were about to come out of forbearance. Since you can put the loans into forbearance for up to 60 months, I decided to do so for another year. Yes, the interest would be accruing, but it would be a major load off my mind since I had other creditors that needed to be paid and fairly limited funds to do so.

I then made it my business to keep my word with all the creditors I had made arrangements with. I gained a good reputation with them – so much so that, when one account got sold to another agency, and they tried to dun me for the entire amount, the first agency not only provided me with the records I needed to fight them, but also told me what steps to take to do so!

Since I had opened the accounts with the credit union during the summer, it was easy to save a bit of money. I had had some surgery at the beginning of the summer, so I was not going much of anywhere. Staying home enabled me to put a bit extra toward my bill payments, and to save up enough money so that when the fall term began I only had to borrow about half of what I normally would have (the city holds back our first paycheck of the new term).

Further, once the new term started, I was able to switch to Direct Deposit for my paychecks. This means fewer trips to the credit union, which is good since I have to go about an hour out of my way to get there.

In fact, I managed to save enough to take advantage of a wonderful offer! A friend had turned me on to Suze Orman’s book, Women and Money, and using the code in that book I opened a money market account at TD Ameritrade. The deal they were offering was that, if you commit to putting $50 a month into this account, after you make the first twelve payments TD Ameritrade will add $100 as a reward. It’s not a lot, but it is a start toward a retirement fund.

Once I paid back the money I had borrowed for the period between the beginning of the term and the receipt of my first paycheck, I also opened a CD at ING Direct, with the goal that when it matures I can use the proceeds to cover the shortfall between the first day of this year’s new term and my paycheck’s arrival.

So, here I am, with my major problems cleared up, a little credit card debt to pay off (about $600), one creditor which is waiting for me to be able to pay it(which I will), a ton of personal debts to be paid off once the credit card debt is gone, my student loans to attack after that, a future to build, and a school aide’s salary on which to accomplish all of this.

I don’t know about you but, having come this far, I am looking forward to the challenge!

"Cleaning Out My Closet" - Eminem

(Originally Posted 4 April 2008)

Part II

So, how did Dee and I begin to clean up the mess we were in?

Well, it was hard…add to the financial issues the stresses of a long-distance relationship, and several apartments we were supposed to be getting falling through, and you have a recipe for depression and inertia.

The first thing we each did was start making payment arrangements with our various creditors. Then we set up support networks. See, one thing that inspired us was a friend who decided that he was going to clean up his finances and post about it in his blog. Although his situation was nowhere near as dire as ours, we were in his support network, and it inspired us to get more aggressive about cleaning up our stuff.

We timed it right, too. As we were making our plans, the government passed a law that allowed everyone to pull their credit reports once per year without paying for them. This gave us each a chance to see who would be hitting us for what and, also, a chance to correct information that was incorrect.

Now, paying things off was costing me money, because I was stuck using money orders. Several years prior to our efforts a so-called friend had bounced about $800 in checks on me, and could not pay me back. It took me a year to pay the bank back, and then they refused to reopen the account, although they had promised me they would. My next step, therefore, was to try to find a way to get a checking account. Since the bank had reported me to Chex Systems, I could not find a bank that would open an account for me. Fortunately for me, my ex was willing to help out by writing checks when I needed them, which cut down on the cost of money orders.

But I am nothing if not persistent. I kept looking on the Internet, and found a few places that offered lists of financial organizations that would help people who had been, as it were, branded by Chex Systems. Not only did I find a credit union whose only requirement for membership was that I either live or work in Brooklyn, but said credit union has a great bill-paying feature, where I only get charged if I don’t use it once a month! Now I could pay off bills without having to pay for the privilege!

After the collection agencies were paid off, I acquired a Visa card and a MasterCard for emergencies. I also acquired four store cards from stores I regularly shop at: Macy’s, Target, Avenue, and Sears. This was for specific purchases that would take less than a month but more than one paycheck to repay. (All four store cards currently have zero balances, by the way, and the MasterCard and Visa are being paid down as I write this.)

I pulled my credit reports for the second time last September. To my great delight, there were nine or more accounts in good standing on each of them (including the student loans), and four adverse items or less on each. Several of the adverse items were duplicates, which I was able to correct by calling the report issuers. The remainder of the adverse items should be gone by September 2009. That means that by October 2009 I should be able to start apartment hunting again! Also, once I get the two credit cards paid off, I can start repaying the various friends who have helped me along the way! You cannot imagine how I am looking forward to watching those debts disappear!

(To be continued)

"Cleaning Out My Closet" - Eminem

(Originally Posted 31 March 2008)

Part I

I didn’t just wake up one day and decide my life needed changing. My life has been changing as far back as I can remember, although it seems to have picked up steam since 2002. Since then, I ended one relationship, began another, got downsized, found a new job, got engaged, lost my apartment, lost weight, gained weight, graduated college, and managed to clear up a significant portion of my financial problems.

While it is not my intention to turn this into a blog about my personal life, knowing a bit of what went into the current spate of reformation might be useful as a background, so here goes.

When my last relationship changed from a romantic relationship back to a friendship (and it has been a very successful friendship!), I decided that some changes were in order. I realized that, over the course of the previous fourteen years, I had tried to become what I was not in order to please someone not myself. Foolish? Perhaps so, but please remember that I was born in the early 1950s and raised to believe that pretty much everyone’s needs came before my own. Shortly after that, I met my fiancé, who was recovering from a bad relationship.

We were both making pretty good money at the time, so it was easy to ignore the deepening financial problems we both had, at least until he broke three ribs and couldn’t work for almost six months. Instead of reassessing our finances, I was determined to not let him worry about anything, and kept to myself some really bad decisions I made, which eventually contributed to my being downsized. It took me over a year to find a new job (at a much lower salary, sadly), but the unemployment insurance I did qualify for was enough to let us handle the day-to-day stuff which was, at that point, pretty much all that mattered to me.

However, when Dee proposed, I did some long, hard thinking. Here I was, in my early fifties, in debt up to my eyeballs (not counting the student loans!), and thinking about joining my life to someone else’s. We did a lot of talking about that. One thing I was adamant about was that I did not want to go into a marriage with both of us owing sufficient money that, if anything happened to one partner, the other could be financially crippled for decades. We finally agreed that, while we would get engaged, any further developments would have to wait until everything but my student loans was paid off. We had great intentions, not much of a plan, and an incredibly unrealistic goal for the time frame we had in mind. Still we managed to make a little headway – at least, we did until disaster struck, in the form of our landlord selling the building we lived in to a company that wanted to turn the apartments into offices.

See, while we were managing day to day, we had no emergency funds. On top of that, our credit reports were a mess. Further, somewhere in the four years since I had gotten the apartment, it had become industry standard for landlords to pull credit reports on prospective tenants (and at the prospective tenant’s expense, no less) before renting to them. To make a long story short, we were unable to get a new apartment. Dee moved back to Florida to live with his sister who offered to put him up rent-free. I moved in with a friend I had helped through various financial problems of her own.

And, as they say, thereby hangs a tale…

(To be continued)

"Everything Put Together, Sooner or Later Falls Apart" - Paul Simon

(Originally Posted 28 March 2008)

Are you familiar with this song? In it, Mr. Simon comments at length about how life tends to be a series of things falling to pieces and that you should “spare your heart.” For years I lived that song – trying to protect myself from the hurt I imagined was just down the road waiting to pounce.

I’ve noticed that things have changed lately; this process that has taken time and effort but has been worth every step. I credit this change to many influences: Albert Ellis and his theories on Rational Emotive Behavior; Sri Swami Satchidananda and his calmness (and bad puns); Natalie Goldberg, Kathleen Adams, Tristine Rainer, and their books on writing and journal-keeping; and the many friends who have listened to me work things out over the years.

One lesson in particular stands out: learning to walk with an open hand…that is, learning to accept what comes into my life and to let go of what is no longer needed. Admittedly, this is not always an easy thing to remember; like everyone else, when things go pear-shaped I – like most of us – tend to beat myself up over it. That, however, does not do anything but take time and energy that could be better used in figuring out how to pick up the pieces and rebuild. (If you want to add a few great tools to your work box, I suggest reading the following two books as a start: A Guide to Rational Living, by Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper, and Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. Dr. Ellis has created a list showing how people turn molehills into mountains, and has some wonderful ideas on how to avoid doing that [and how to reverse the process]; Ms. Goldberg has many ideas on how to be kind to yourself.)

When I drop the ball – and believe me, I do it more often than I am happy about – I have found that what works for me is to:

1. Acknowledge that I have done so.
2. Try not to beat myself up over it. I make an effort to remind myself that I would not be human if I didn’t mess up on occasion.
3. Look to see what I can do to start moving forward again, and what I can do to make better choices in the future.
4. Be realistic. Some of the situations I’ve gotten into cannot be resolved quickly. Setting realistic goals to accomplish resolution means that I will be much less likely to become overwhelmed and drop the ball again in the future.

Above all, I remind myself that having the chance to rebuild things, from where I stand now, increases the likelihood that I will rebuild them in a stronger, sturdier manner.

When the Going Gets Tough…The Tough Keep Putting One Foot Ahead of the Other

(Originally published 24 March 2008)

Several years ago, my ex said to me, “You owe the whole world money, your life is blown to Hell in a handbasket, yet you still laugh and have fun How can you do that?” My answer then, as it is now, was to ask him how being depressed and miserable would change any of it.

Now, I’m no Pollyanna; nor am I a New Age, psychobabble-spouting optimist. What I am is a fairly tough-minded woman who has made both good and bad decisions over the course of five and a half decades. In other words, I am a survivor.

You might wonder what this has to do with you and why you should add this blog to your feed (or bookmark it). Well, over the years I’ve learned a lot about keeping going, as we all have. And, what I’d really like to see happen here is the creation of a community where tips, coping mechanisms, support, and inspiration can be shared.

That said, there are one or two caveats regarding commenting:

1. Differences of opinion are not only welcome, they are encouraged as long as the conversation is civil.
2. No ad hominem attacks, please. Attacking ideas is fine; attacking people is not, and you will be disemvowelled for doing so. (Disemvowelling is a way of dealing with miscreants by removing all the vowels from his/her comment. I do not know who the originator was, but I picked up on it from Teresa Nielsen Hayden at Making Light[http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/].)
3. If you quote someone or reference someone’s writing, please cite your source and, if possible, provide a link. It’s a lot easier to discuss something if we can all be on the same page.

Other than that, I want to welcome you to my blog, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say as we go along.Several years ago, my ex said to me, “You owe the whole world money, your life is blown to Hell in a handbasket, yet you still laugh and have fun How can you do that?” My answer then, as it is now, was to ask him how being depressed and miserable would change any of it.

Now, I’m no Pollyanna; nor am I a New Age, psychobabble-spouting optimist. What I am is a fairly tough-minded woman who has made both good and bad decisions over the course of five and a half decades. In other words, I am a survivor.

You might wonder what this has to do with you and why you should add this blog to your feed (or bookmark it). Well, over the years I’ve learned a lot about keeping going, as we all have. And, what I’d really like to see happen here is the creation of a community where tips, coping mechanisms, support, and inspiration can be shared.

That said, there are one or two caveats regarding commenting:

1. Differences of opinion are not only welcome, they are encouraged as long as the conversation is civil.
2. No ad hominem attacks, please. Attacking ideas is fine; attacking people is not, and you will be disemvowelled for doing so. (Disemvowelling is a way of dealing with miscreants by removing all the vowels from his/her comment. I do not know who the originator was, but I picked up on it from Teresa Nielsen Hayden at Making Light[http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/].)
3. If you quote someone or reference someone’s writing, please cite your source and, if possible, provide a link. It’s a lot easier to discuss something if we can all be on the same page.

Other than that, I want to welcome you to my blog, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say as we go along.