I Have to Share

Bohemian Rhapsody Anyone?

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Thanksgiving Love & A Thank You

I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. It is always my favorite holiday, but this year my parents have almost 30 friends and family coming to dinner. It should prove for a fun time. And of course, this year we also have the added bonus of seeing many of our family members for the first time since we got engaged.

I would also like to say thank you so much to everyone that responded to my last post. I was feeling amazingly overwhelmed and you've given me great perspective. It is true I need to figure out my priorities and just accept the fact that given my priorities it is impossible to have a wedding for less than 20K. We are getting married in Connecticut, but it is close enough to New York City to be almost as expensive. I need to accept that fact that if I want our family and friends to be there, which I do, we are going to have a big wedding and that is okay. There are other ways we can cut costs, and in today's economy, everything is negotiable. At the end of the day I am lucky enough to be marrying the man I want to grow old with, and that is really all that matters.

photo by Road Fun

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Wedding Costs

So I know I promised this blog wouldn't become a wedding blog, but recently I've been focused on wedding costs.

I'm taking three classes on top of working full-time next semester so I would really like to have a location for the ceremony and reception (at the same pace) secured before then. I've spent a good deal of time this week searching for possible venues and securing appointments. While the places I've been finding look fantastic, the costs are disheartening. I always knew it was about $100 per head in my area, but I still thought I could find something that was nice and less expensive. It is not looking good.

The biggest problem with the $100 a head is that my wedding is going to be big. While I would prefer something small, that is just not an option. Both fiance and I have large families. I see most of my family regularly so cutting some of them out just feels cruel. Even considering that some people won't come, I still think we are looking at 200 people. 200 people at $100 a head. Ouch.

I'm having a hard time with this because having an expensive wedding goes against everything I believe in. I still have hope that we will find a cheaper way to do this, but for now, it is stressing me out a little bit.

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How It Happened

Bf and I had plans on Saturday night to go to dinner, however he was being a little secretive about where and when (and I was giving him a hard time about it). I insisted if he wasn't going to tell me where we were going to dinner then he had to get dressed first so I would know what to wear. While part of this was true, I think my insistence was also an excuse to continue to be lazy on the couch.

Bf decided to take out the trash so I got up to open the door for him and started getting ready. Around the same time my friend texted me so we could plan where to go to brunch the next day, and because of this, I didn't notice that he didn't come back at first. Eventually though, as I was beginning to wonder where he was I got a text from him of a scrabble board with the words "lets play a game". At first I was confused about what game, scrabble maybe? And, where was he?

Eventually I caught on and the next text told me to wear the dress he had placed in his closet, a dress I've had for a while but never worn. As you can probably guess at this point I'm getting excited and trying to get ready as quickly as possible. The next few texts were about grabbing his camera (which we forgot to use) and bringing an umbrella because it was lightly raining outside. He even left $20 on the table so I would have money for a cab.

His next clue led me to the south east entrance of central park at 59th and fifth - where we was waiting. He kissed me, took my hand and led me into the park. We chatted and walked around for a bit, at this point it was dark and lightly misting. We walked around for so long I began to doubt he was going to ask me, but then he got down on one knee and of course I said yes. In fact, I was crying so at first I couldn't even see the ring. (We walked around for so long because he was trying to find a place without many (or any) people. He knew I wanted the proposal to be a private affair.)

We then went directly to dinner, which was nice because we had time to enjoy our engagement before anyone knew (even though I was dying to make some calls!). So now bf has become finance and we have a wedding to plan. I promise that this blog won't turn into a wedding blog, but I'm also hoping my pf friends who recently had weddings and are planning weddings will share any cost saving tips.

Thank you for all the congratulations I got. I'm so excited and so happy to be marrying the man I love and want to spend the rest of my life with.

Additoinal note: (I mean fiance not finance) =)

Photo by Chocolate Geek

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Quick Post

My life has been a bit hectic the last few days, mainly for the usual reasons, but also because over the weekend I got engaged!!!

Details to come...

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It's Open Enrollment Time

I just received the open enrollment information from my employer and similar to many others, my costs are going up. This is particularly hard to swallow this year as our salaries were frozen last year. While I'm incredibly thankful to have my job and to feel secure in my job, I do get frustrated. Sometimes it feels like everything is going up and the last thing I want to do is cut back further. Excluding my fixed expenses I already live on very little per month (based on the area I live).

Lately I've actually wanted things that will increase my spending, for example I think it is time I had a smart phone, preferably an iphone. I now have cable and dvr (which I love). So based on the choices I've made and I'm making I shouldn't complain, but I can't help feeling frustrated at times. At almost 29 shouldn't I be able to have cable and an smart phone without worrying about the costs? When it comes to things I could want, these are very basic!

Anyways enough of my rant. Here are my increases:

There is a 21% increase in premiums, my employer was actually able to bring it down to 21% from almost 35%. Part of that negotiation included increasing copays.

I'm going from a $20 copay to a $25 copay. My emergency room copay is going from $35 to $100 (ouch) and my prescription drugs are going from $10/$20/$35 to $15/$25/$50.

My dental costs are staying the same.

I would like to increase my supplemental retirement contributions, but I have to sit down with my pay stub and really crunch some numbers.

Well is could always be worse!

photo by nDevilTV

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November Goals

I know we are a week into November, but since I haven't had a chance to create my monthly goals I'm going to post them now. I've discovered that three to four large goals are easier for me than a bunch of smaller more focused goals. That way the smaller goals I make throughout the month are framed by these larger overarching goals.

1. Stay Under Budget - self-explanatory

2. Get ahead on school work - I want to get as much done as possible in the beginning of the month so I have as little stress as possible during the holidays!

3. Keep running at least twice a week - As it gets colder I lose motivation, but I also feel like running keeps me sane. Only twice a week isn't ideal, but it is doable and doable works for me.

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Improving Education

I just read an interesting column by the Naked Economist about how to improve American education.

To demonstrate public education he compares company A with company B.

Company A hires the best people it can. Those who are hired are paid and promoted based on performance. This is not easy, as it's often hard to determine who is really doing a good job. The compensation and promotion process is prone to politics and personal preferences. Still, most people at Company A recognize that there is a connection between pay and productivity. The true superstars get recognized eventually. Those who come to work but never contribute are fired eventually. Everyone in between believes that there is at least a tenuous connection between how hard they work and how well they do at the firm. It's not a perfect meritocracy, but it's not the Soviet Union either.

Company B also seeks to hire the best people it can, with several caveats. First, all prospective employees must undertake two years of full-time specialized training, at their own expense, just to be considered for a job. Study after study has shown that this training has zero connection to subsequent performance at the firm, but Company B sticks to this screening mechanism anyway. Second, all employees eventually hired by Company B are paid based on their years of experience at the firm, which also been shown to have little or no connection with job performance. Finally, Company B promises that no one who has worked at the company for three years or more will ever be fired, even if their performance is mediocre or poor, year after year.

Obviously, company B is our public education system. He goes on to argue that this system discourages the best people from becoming teachers. I don't disagree. I believe our teachers are still paid poorly for all the work that goes into being a good teacher. I also know that there has been a lot of controversy over teacher-training programs. I don't know enough about teacher-training programs to really comment on this argument though.

What annoyed me most in this article was the economic premise he used to explain why the most talented were not becoming teachers:

Economists refer to this phenomenon as adverse selection. Individuals use private information (their expected productivity in this case) to sort themselves into a job with a compensation structure that suits them best.

In fact, I realized that this is what annoys me about economics in general (and this is coming from someone who has been fascinated with the field since our economy collapsed). It is overly rational, ignoring other more personal considerations. For example, using the adverse selection phenomenon described above, it would be expected that the smartest and most motivated people would all be in the fields that pay them the best. My personal experience tells me this is not true.

There are many incredibly intelligent and highly motivated people who work at my organization, a non-profit that does necessarily pay well. In fact, I would go as far as to argue that I rarely interact with colleagues who are not highly motivated and dedicated in their jobs. I am constantly surprised at how much we are able to get done with a small budget and a small amount of staff (compared to similar organizations).

Perhaps this just hits a little too close to home for me. I am not an unintelligent person and I know that I could make a lot more money in another field. However, I choose to work in a nonprofit because I believe in the field and in my organization's mission.

I guess one could argue that compensation is not always defined as money, but can also be defined as the value of your job. However, wouldn't this then go against the columnist's point?

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Monthly Update

October was the first month is a long time that I managed to stay in my budget. I have to say it is a great feeling and now my challenge is to do it for November and December as well. This is my chance to turn out a very expensive year!

In regards to my net worth, it went up 1%. After all the months of watching it go down, I'm incredibly happy with a 1% increase.

In regards to my goals, it wasn't half bad.

1. Keep the Balance - It was a busy month, and while my balance wasn't perfect, besides missing some runs I think I did pretty well.

2. Small Challenge of the Month - I made this 3 out of the 4 weeks. Not too bad. Now I have to decide if I want to try this again, or have another small challenge.

3. Stay at or under Budget - DONE!!! =)

4. Keep up my Running - Fail. I have been running and I did run a 10k in October, but there was a week in there where I didn't run at all.

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New Series - Your Stories

The other day I received an email from one of my readers letting me know about this amazing deal he found. While I was excited for him, it also got me thinking about how I can showcase this on my blog. So, I've decided to start a new series called Your Stories. Now this series will completely depend on my readers, and if all my readers have their own blogs, well then welcome to the first and only reader's stories. (Though, they can always guest post!). If I have any readers who don't have their own blog and want to submit a post please do so! Just email me at alwaystheplanner (at) gmail (dot) com. I promise to protect your anonymity, unless you ask me otherwise.

So without further ado...

Eating Out

This reader of mine, let's call him Joe, decided he wanted to take his girlfriend out to eat. Like most people, he has been on a saving money kick. So he decided to shop around and came across the website restaurant.com. They sell gift certificates for participating restaurants at a very good discount. He decided to go ahead and buy two gift certificates. This it itself is a successful personal finance story, but Joe decided to take it one step further. I'll let him tell you in his own words (I've taken out some personal details).

I scored a $25 certificate for $2. Yes, $2. The normal price is $10, but I found an online code that brought the price to $2. I also bought a $25 GC for $2. There are some restrictions, like having to get a certain amount of food, and for Restaurant 1 they tack on the gratuity to the prediscounted price.

So having only ever used one restaurant.com gift certificate before I asked him to tell me how it went:

Great success! $2 got us a $25 credit towards our meal. The waiter knew exactly what it was and took it no questions asked.

Bam!!

So my friends, if you haven't already checked out restaurant.com it might not be such a bad idea. =)

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iPhone Lust

Lately I have had a serious case of iphone lust. In fact, it has been so bad that if it weren't for my boyfriend and sister I would already have one, whatever the costs. There are so many reasons I want one, but the biggest is that I believe it will help me better organize my increasingly busy life. I even found out I can get a discount through my place of work, which would mean that after the initial costs it would only be $25 more a month than I currently spend on my phone.

Luckily, I've come to my senses about needed an iphone this very minute. Though I still really really want one, and I still plan on getting one, the key word here being "plan".

It is not going to be cheap for me to get an iphone and before I can get one I need to have the money in the bank to pay for all the initial cost:

$199.99 - iphone

$175 - canceling other wireless service

$36 - initiation fee

For a total whooping amount of $410.99. How much do I have that I can use towards this at the moment? $117. Therefore, I need to save $294 before I can get an iphone. I currently put $75 towards my slush fund (that will fund my iphone) a month. This means 4 more months until I can get an iphone, unless I figure out how to save more money towards this cost. I just got an $80 reimbursement from my flexible spending plan that I'm seriously considering putting into this fund. It would mean I could get the iphone in January instead of February.

Here is where my competing goals come into play. I'm also focusing on saving for travel at the moment and a big part of me thinks that $80 needs to go into my travel fund, which is paltry at the moment.

Sigh, decisions...

What would you do?

photo by Brian Wilson

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A Constant Struggle

I find that personal finance never gets easy. It is a constant back and forth as you try to figure out what works best for you. Sometimes it makes sense to focus on saving, other times to pay down debt. And when you get to your near perfect place and your emergency savings is completely funded, something always happens. The next thing you know you are focusing on building your savings back up because there actually was an emergency.

It just seems that whenever I'm doing well, things happen that put me back. Either it is my own desire to get new and shiny things (i.e. the iphone). Or, everything just seems to break at once, like when my camera, phone and glasses all broke within two months of each other.

It is in this frustration that back and forth causes, where it is easy to think - what's the point. This is the most important time to remind yourself that it is going to be okay. The bigger goals of financial security are worth it. Eventually life will get easier, but only if you stick to your financial plan. I also believe that during these ups and downs it is worth it to rethink your priorities. For example, even though I'm not going to make my savings goal this year, I'm focusing on beefing up my travel fund. Because, when it comes down to it, if I don't have enough money in my travel savings before this summer, I'll end up pulling from my emergency fund to cover the costs. For me, that is never a good idea.

Frustration happens, you just can't let it take over.

picture by remuz [Jack The Ripper]

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$20

I can pat myself on the back again. I actually made this $20 challenge week. I spent no money until last night where I spent exactly $20 on pizza and beer.

I know Friday isn't technically over yet, but since I'm running a road race early tomorrow morning and I have a paper to finish and a midterm to study for I can guarantee I'm not going to spend money tonight.

I also want to apologize for not posting much lately. My life is going to return to what counts as normal for me after the end of this week and I'll have more time to both read and comment on my favorite blogs and actually write some posts!

Till then folks...

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An Update

Last week was not a good one for money - my $20 weekly challenge was a total fail. I don't have my budget with me so I can't tell you exact numbers, but after $20 for a co-pay, $20 at a grocery store, $27 for dinner with a friend, $5 for lunch it was my worst week ever!

I have to be really careful with the money I have left it make it last the next two weeks so I'm going to be more serious about keeping to my $20 limit this week.

I spent my entire weekend doing work so today my brain feels like mush. Definitely not good for a Monday. Sadly, I didn't get everything done that I wanted too. It was good to learn that things took me a lot longer to do then I expected. At least knowing this will help me plan better for the future.

So I didn't end up doing any reward shopping (though I did make it to Trader Joes). I've decided to table my shopping for a bit. Yes there are things I still really really want, but now that I have a winter coat and a good pair of gloves I don't need any of them. I'll be posting again soon about planning for the holiday season.

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To Blackberry or iPhone

As I often talk about on this blog, my life has gotten significantly more busy since I started school, especially since my job itself has gotten busier than usual. So even though I had to get a new phone recently (my completely died), I've been debating investing in a blackberry or iphone. I'm really beginning to think the extra cost each month would be worth it.

So here are my issues:

• I would either have to pay a cancellation fee to get out of my current provider if I wanted an iphone, or
• If I got a blackberry with my current provider, I would have to pay full price.

Either way it looks like it would be expensive. There are guides online that teach you how to get out of a contract without paying the fee and I could always ask at&t to do it, but there is no guarantee that any of that is going to work. I have no idea how to get a new phone at a discount if I just got a new phone.

Suggestions anyone?

Photo by William Hook

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