How to save $500 per month: I wish!

My favorite personal finance blog, Get Rich Slowly, posted today about ways to cut your spending by $500/month. My brain immediately perked up when I read that headline, because I pay down my credit card debt by $500 each month, and it would be great to either: 1) pay them $500 more per month, or 2) have $500 to spend on other things, because most of my disposable income goes to my credit card debt.

So let's look at the excerpt:

Cut your spending by $500 per month
The Consumer Reports Money Lab looked for easy ways for the average American to save money. They came up with six suggestions and estimated potential savings for the average consumer. Here are their suggestions....

1. Find cheaper auto insurance. By shopping around, the average person can save $65 per month.
2. Optimize your life insurance. Premiums have dropped in the past ten years, the article notes. It may be worth replacing an existing policy. Also, by adopting a healthier lifestyle, you can cut costs. Average savings? $110.
3. Shop smart for food. CR cites U.S. Department of Agriculture data indicating the average family of four can drop its grocery bill by nearly $200 per month though smarter shopping.
4. Stop paying bank fees. The average U.S. household pays more than $25 per month in bank fees. There’s no reason to do so.
5. Call up cell phone savings. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average family spends $90 on phone-related expenses. Consumer Reports suggests checking to be sure you’re not paying for too many minutes.
6. Pay off your credit card. If you can get out of debt, you’ll not only save on finance charges, but you’ll also free up the cash that was going to pay the principal. Estimated monthly savings: $65.

SIGH. I can not comply. That sigh is all I can do. Allow me to explain, point by point:

1. I only pay $65 per month for auto insurance.
2. I have no life insurance (therefore I pay no premium).
3. Look, I bitch about how much fresh produce costs, but I barely spend $200/month at the grocery store on food.
4. I pay maybe a couple bucks a month in bank fees. Too much, but certainly not $25.
5. My cell phone costs $55/month. I could check in to see if I could opt for fewer minutes since I'm not much of a phone gabber, but I wouldn't be able to save more than about $10.
6. DUH. That's what I need to save this $500/month for.

The thing is, I make a decent living. Really. I always blow away the figures for average household income. And day to day, I don't live extravagantly. (I keep my cars for many years, I've never bought a diamond, etc.) There are certainly things I do that cost money (like, I have 4-5 trips planned between now and the end of September, but they're all domestic, and they're short and relatively cheap for vacations).

But the main thing that kills my budget is the cost of living where I do. So over the next few days I'm going to start talking about budgets, linking to other blogs that are doing the same, and analyzing any and every possible place I might start looking to save money that doesn't involve moving or not enjoying life.

Pet insurance redux: Dazzle vs. Maple

I think I may have insured the wrong dog.

Nearly a half a year after my first blog post of substance, I can see it so clearly. I was gambling, and I was doing it just like a gambler does it. Just like the fan in the stands who says of his favorite hitter who has gone 0 for 5, "He's due." I did it just like that, using the same stupid logic. He's not due, you idiot, he's in a slump, and he's more likely to strike out than he is to hit the ball. He's a bad bet, and later you'll see, in hindsight, that you should have known better.

Now I see, in hindsight, that I should have known better.

I chose to purchase health insurance for one dog, rather than two, to test the system. Nothing wrong with that. But in choosing the dog to insure, I employed all the classic gambling blunders. I decided that because I had barely spent any money at the vet on Dazzle (Dog 2) that she was due. I decided that since I had just spent over $1000 at the vet on Maple (Dog 1) that there was no reason for her to get sick again any time soon. My logic seemed 100% reasonable at the time.

But in fact, Maple is just like [insert your favorite brilliant pitcher who is healthy only 25% of the time here]. Every time he comes back to play, everybody expects great things from him. But in truth, he's the pitcher most likely to be injured next, again, because he's just plain prone to injury.

So now I know: Maple is prone to gum infections, and she is generally prone to special circumstances that make her the more expensive dog. Dazzle costs money, too, but not the way Maple does.

And now I'm thinking: Maybe it's time to insure Maple, as well. She's probably going to need antibiotics again before long ($150 for 2 weeks' worth) and she's probably going to need yearly dental cleanings (a few $hundred even without extractions). Oh, Maple, Maple, Maple. A dog that jumps on guests, a dog that jumps when she hears even the faintest jingle of her leash, a dog that hogs my bed, a dog that has more love to give than there are people to receive it. A dog that costs me more money than I spend on anything else besides rent.

A dog that's worth it, with or without insurance.

Backyard campout: report

Yes, I did pitch my tent and sleep in my backyard on Saturday.

Here is a slightly more detailed report on what happened.

I spent the afternoon cleaning up the yard, as had to happen anyway. The grass needed mowing, trash needed to be moved into the driveway, the patio needed to be swept and hosed, and the patio furniture needed to be cleaned. So that was a nice, productive afternoon for me.

In the evening I had a couple friends over and we sat on the patio by the light of some fantastic citronella candle/torches from Crate & Barrel (that they don't seem to sell anymore). We sat, chatted, and drank two bottles of shiraz.

My two wonderful greyhounds and tortoiseshell cat kept us company. Before it got dark I pitched the tent, tossed a sleeping bag and pillow inside, and spread out a couple blankets on the grass for the dogs to sleep on.

• At 12:15am my guests left.
• For the next fifteen minutes I got ready for bed.

• At 12:30am I was safely and comfortably ensconced in the tent with my dog Maple just outside. (Dazzle was already asleep in the house and had no time for our camping shenanigans.)
• At 12:35am it started to rain. I got out of the tent, let Maple go into the house, and put the fly on the tent. The forecast hadn't sounded at all serious about rain, so while I did originally spread the tarp under the tent, I did so only to prevent dew from seeping through, and I never use the fly unless I have to so I had simply kept it at the ready. I got back into the tent and fell asleep to the gentle sound of rain.
• At 3:30am I woke up in a puddle of rain water. In my preparations, I had spread the tarp too far outside the footprint of the tent, so water accumulated on top of the tarp and underneath the tent. Plus, when securing the fly, I didn't secure its flaps far enough out from the tent. So basically I had water seeping in through the bottom and two sides of the tent for three hours.
• At 3:31am, when I realized it was wet no matter which direction I rolled, I collected my sleeping bag and pillow and went inside the house. I changed clothes and went to sleep where normal people usually do: in bed.

I'm thinking of repeating the backyard campout idea as soon as my schedule allows. (I'm not doing it on a school night.) So the first opportunity will be the night of July 3rd. It's fun sleeping out there! I especially hope it doesn't rain, so I can see if my dogs enjoy sleeping outdoors.

July desktop wallpaper calendar from Smashing Magazine

Well, it looks like we survived to see yet another month. And since chances are good we'll be alive during at least part of July, we should really head over to Smashing Magazine to pick out a desktop wallpaper calendar to replace June's. Otherwise, we might be unable to keep track of what day it is, and might not even take notice when August rolls around.

I have to say, Smashing Mag has put together a kick-ass selection for July. As I noted, I wasn't thrilled with June's choices, but luckily I did find an image that was appropriate for le desktop de Jen S. This month there are several that I like quite a lot, but as usual, there is one in particular that stands out as the right one for me.

And here it is, Cow & Chicken, by Vane Kosturanov.


The cow, the chicken, the sky of pea soup green ... the imagery is so perfectly Jen S., that even though the calendar rates, on a scale of 1-10, nearly zero, I will be using Cow & Chicken as my desktop wallpaper calendar for the entire month of July.

It reminds me of Chagall. Because of the chicken, mostly. Any artwork containing a chicken, or hooved creatures (particularly goats) are indubitably Jen S.

100 pushup challenge: update 1

As you recall, along with zillions of J.D.-fearing minions, I recently challenged myself to doing 100 pushups in 6 weeks, which would be somewhere at the end of July for me. In my original post I didn't go so far as to scoff at the challenge, because I knew it would be tough! But I did suggest that the comparison between doing 100 pushups and running a marathon was not quite the right comparison, because while 100 pushups will be hard, running a marathon is freaking harder, OK? Even seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong said that running the New York Marathon in 2006 "was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done". (Of course Lance finished in under 3 hours, while my marathon took me 4:28. But I ride my bike only ~600 miles a year.) So all I was saying was, pushups and marathons aren't the same.

But I must say, I'm having a hard time. First off, my biggest problem is my ab muscles. I went into this challenge with both my pushup muscles and my core muscles being way out of condition. I am not familiar with a way to do pushups without tightening my core muscles, and so the result of my very first day of pushups was several days of sore abs.

Week 1 recap:
So the first day of the challenge I performed according to schedule, and did 5 sets of the following numbers of pushups: 2-2-2-2-3. The next two days of the pushup challenge I could not do a single regular pushup due to ab pain, so instead I modified my schedule and performed increased repetitions of modified (knee) pushups. So instead of performing 4-3-2-2-4 and 5-4-4-3-5 on days 2 and 3, I performed more like 12-12-12-12-12 and 15-15-15-15-15 modified pushups. In the past, completing huge messes of knee pushups really helped my regular pushups improve, so I'm going with that theory this time, as well.

Week 2 recap:
A similar thing happened during the second week. I performed according to schedule on day 1 (4-4-3-3-5) and day 2 (6-5-3-3-6), but on day 3 my abs were holding me back from performing my pushups in acceptable form so instead I did something like 5 regular pushups followed by 15-20-20-15 knee pushups.

I really think I can hit the goal of 100 pushups, but I'm not sure I can do so according to the schedule at one hundred pushups. When I previously reached 50 pushups within 4 weeks I was doing pushups 5 days per week, and more repetitions. So, will I be "cheating" if I do extra? Can I say I'm participating in the same challenge if I modify my schedule? I think the challenge is just to complete 100 pushups, and not necessarily do so according to any particular plan, right?

That's what I'm going to go with. Because we're already 1/3 finished with the challenge and I can't even do 10 regular pushups. I need to pick up the pace.

Americans, go camping tomorrow night...

Go camping in your back yard!

Tomorrow night, June 28, 2008, is the day that has been chosen for the 4th annual Great American Backyard Campout. The idea is for thousands of our countrymen (countryfamilies!) to come together in spirit and enjoy the great outdoors. Even if you can't get away to a proper campsite any time soon, I think this is a great opportunity to drag out your tents, sleeping bag, lanterns, and s'mores fixins, and do something different. I especially think this is a great opportunity for people with kids who have never gone camping. It can introduce them to the experience in a non-threatening way. (That applies to introducing your spouse, girlfriend, etc, to camping for the first time ... it's not as much of a wilderness- or away-from-home-experience, but it can get non-campers used to sleeping out of doors, in a tent, in the vicinity of mosquitoes, etc.)

So if the weather cooperates as much as my local weather forecast suggests it will, I think I'll pitch my tent in the yard, spread out some blankets in the grass for the dogs, and give it a go tomorrow night.

Veggie garden inventory

This vegetable garden of mine, previous blog entries on which I am going to refrain from mercilessly back-linking to today, is a completely new experience for me. I've never grown an edible substance before. And historically I haven't even been that into vegetables.

So deciding what to plant was difficult for me. In the end, I treated it as one big experiment. What kind of tomato will I like best? What kind will grow the best in my climate and soil? Who knows? So when choosing what varieties of tomato, eggplant, bell pepper, and hot pepper to plant, I decided to choose several.

And I found my chart under the piles of crap in my dining room, so here, without further ado, is my vegetable garden inventory:

Flat-leaf parsley (1 4' row)
Curly-leaf parsley (1 4' row)
Yellow onions (11 plants)
Habanero peppers (2 plants)
Squash (1 plant)
Early girl tomatoes (2 plants)
Ildi tomatoes (2 plants)
Golden boy tomatoes (1 plant)
Better boy tomatoes (1 plant)
Whopper tomatoes (1 plant)
Beefy boy tomatoes (1 plant)
Also, patio tomatoes, on my porch (Ha! You thought I was going to say "patio", didn't you?) (2 plants)
Strawberries (3 plants)
Super chili peppers (2 plants)
Super banana peppers (3 plants)
Better belle peppers (1 plant)
Lilac peppers (1 plant)
California wonder peppers (1 plant)
Jalapeno peppers (11 plants)
Whopper bell peppers (6 plants)
Collards (1 4' row)
Kale (1 4' row)
Whopper eggplant (1 plant)
Ichiban eggplant (1 plant)
Fairy tale eggplant (1 plant)

I wish I had planted one or two corn stalks. I have one little unplanted section left in the garden (well, it was planted originally, but the habanero peppers died) that I think I'll fill with more greens. I'm not buying any more seeds or plants of any kind this year, though. I still have leftover seeds and will continue to use what I have.

I hope something in this garden becomes edible one of these days!

I can has overkill?

Don't get me wrong, I love I Can Has Cheezburger? as much as the next guy. More than most of the next guys, actually.

But today — June 26, 2008 — what's the deal?

Mark's Daily Apple has it.
Marketing Pilgrim has it.

Me likey, but me a little weirded out. I wonder what other blogs are LOLcatting it today. Seen any?

Moments of hilarity: finding old to-do lists

I keep a spiral bound notebook that I write everything in. I take notes for work, I sketch out my vegetable garden, I keep track of hours I work on projects (though I do most of that at Toggl.com), and I write my to-do lists.

I used to keep a "master" to-do list in its own notebook. Basically, the entire book was devoted to this list, and I'd write all my to-do items on the first page, cross them out as I completed them, and just keep adding items to the bottom of the list as they came up. When the first page was filled, I'd move to the second page. If ever an entire page's items were crossed off, I'd rip out the page, and the next page would become page 1.

That was actually a little depressing, because I sometimes have quite lofty to-do items. Things like "Landscape Yard" tend to appear on my lists. Items that can take literally years. So the book would always have several pages of items that were crossed out at the beginning, save for a few stragglers such as: "Paint House", "New Garage", "Antarctica". At some point my to-do notebook mysteriously vanished (eyeing the shredder) and I started making micro to-do lists in my regular note-taking notebook. Just like grocery lists. A list of things to do today, this evening, or this weekend. After the time period ends, the list loses its relevancy and is discarded.

So rather than view my incomplete to-do items as depressing, I now find them funny. Whenever I happen to come across a to-do list from a few weeks or months ago, it amuses me, as life should, to see what I accomplished and what I did not.

Here's one I've just come across. You need not understand what all the items mean to get the picture.

Clean cage
Dad - mulch?
Igs Outside Igs In
Feed Petunia
Raina Cage
Mutual - plants
Hosta
Run
Mow
Sun
DGF
JRS
Buoscio
Lungate
Run
Sun
Blood
Raina Cage
Basement
Container Store Shelves

The problem with this list was that I tried to keep it going like I used to, rather than use my new method of keeping micro-lists that are discarded quickly after use. Hence the same items appearing multiple times. (Too bad Raina's Cage was neglected not once, but twice. Thank goodness Raina was already dead.)

And thank goodness I can now cross off the following:

Basement
Container Store Shelves

The men from US Waterproofing are in my basement right now, and from my second floor office I can feel them working their jackhammers on the basement floor. Dust is flying all over my new Container Store shelves, but that's something I can live with. On my next micro-list I'm betting there'll be an entry that says:

Dust Container Store Shelves

Veggie report

Look what I spy...


Tomatoes are coming!


Peppers are coming!

But I think my garden legend is under a pile of crap in my dining room, so I can't tell you what kinds.

I also just discovered that I have at least two living clematis plants in my front yard garden bed! I planted about six of them a couple years ago, but they were tiny babies, we had no rain, and I couldn't keep up with keeping them alive. But with all the rain we've had this year so far (and thankfully most of it has been overnight ... I'm loving this summer in Chicagoland with warm days and cool nights) my garden is thriving (read: overgrown) and plants are growing which have no business being alive. This weekend I'll do some pruning and get a new lattice so I can show off those beautiful clematis flowers. They're a gorgeous deep red, too.