Uncategorized

Financially Fucked

Posted on by noemikjames / 20 Comments

So, remember how I said it was going to be tight for a little while? Well, it turns out that it’s going to be more than tight.

We are kind of financially fucked.

The good news is, the really dire stretch is relatively short term. We have some small raises coming to us next summer, and that will give us a few hundred a month extra to work with. The other good news is that I seem more aware of just how fucked we are and how drastic our response (re: spending) has to be, and I’m making the necessary changes. (Even better, my husband seems to as well! (See below))

The other good news is that we haven’t been paying for childcare for three months and I didn’t spend all that money on dumb shit! Hurrah! So we have an extra few thousand to fall back on before we start dipping into our real “in case of emergency” reserves.

And, if I could find a tutoring gig or two I could be bringing in some significant under-the-table cash to take some of the pressure off. This will take work and a significant amount of ingenuity, but if I can find tutoring I should be able to pay for my daughter’s vision therapy without going into debt.

The final silver lining is that this is going to force us to get on the same page about spending, because there just isn’t any room for our old habits. 

The bad news is those raises aren’t much, which means this is our financial reality for the next 3-4 years. It’s going to be REALLY tight for a while.

The other bad news is that if something big breaks on our car or at our house, we’re totally fucked.

{I bet you’re all thinking, I told you so, about raising the rent. And fair enough. You did. And you were right. But what’s done is done, and we’re helping someone who cares for the physically disabled stay in the city, so I feel pretty fucking good about that.}

How did this happen, you ask? Well a couple of shitty things happened to put a crimp in our finances this past month. Our tenant left, which means we lost a month of rent, and then her toilet was flowing/leaking like crazy while she was gone for two weeks (before she moved out) and we got stuck with two water bills equalling $1200. (Yes, we had someone come out and yes we fixed the leak and yes we’re petitioning for a leak credit.) We’ll get some of that back, but I’m guessing it won’t be much. These are obviously one-time, short term obstacles, but they put us in a less-than-ideal position as we enter into this tight period.

Most importantly, our childcare bill is just a lot bigger than we’re used to. So we need to absorb that extra $600 a month (and no, there are no cheaper options for child care, we already send them to the cheapest options that we feel comfortable with).

Then there was my daughter’s eye exam and the subsequent vision therapy that is required. Our vision policy specifically says “vision therapy not covered,” so I’m not expecting they’ll be reimbursing us, even partially, for the appointments (though I’m still going to try). This is only for 12 weeks, so even if we go into debt, it’s not a long term monthly cost.

One good thing is that in December I’ll have $3K in my 125 tax-sheltered childcare account to claim, and if I put that toward my student loans, that is $350 a month I don’t have to pay. And if things are looking REALLY bad in January when I get the money, I can keep that $3K in my checking for when we’re not able to make ends meet and still not pay my student loans for a while, because I’ve been over-paying them for so long that I’m not required to make another payment until 2018. Of course in that scenario I’m paying 6% interest on that money, but 6% on $3K is probably better than 20% on some amount we may need to put on a credit card. (If you want to weigh in on this in the comments, please do, I’m not quite sure how I should proceed with the student loan/$3K coming to me situation).

And we have other things going for us, like the fact that my son has enough hand-me-down clothes and shoes to last until Kindergarten (except for some pairs of khaki pants because that he needs to wear for “school” (yes they wear a uniform in preschool/daycare) and we weren’t handed down any of those). My daughter is taken care of until she grows out of the 6/6x/7 size–which probably gives me a year. Both sets of grandparents are very helpful and would totally get either of them a jacket or shoes if we really needed them too. They will also get them so much for Christmas that we could really get away with getting them almost nothing, which is currently my plan.

We haven’t promised to see anyone for the holidays so we don’t have to budget in expensive plane tickets or even gas to travel. The few things we really should fix on the house can wait–we lived without heat last winter and we can do it again. I guess the biggest thing is that my husband seems to understand how tight things are and has made changes without me prodding him; he asked me to get him a box of small chip bags at Costco which means he’s packing his lunch for work at least some days. And he hasn’t asked if he should pick up burritos for a month. We didn’t even order a pizza last Friday. (I know, we’re ridiculous but it really is a CHEAP pizza). We should be able to make this work. It’s going to be a challenge, but I think we can manage it. Right now I’m just taking it one day at a time, while I run the math on my budget to make sure I’m accounting for all expenditures. Hopefully in a few months, after I see that I can keep expenditures in the very narrow margin of what’s left after paying the necessities, I’ll feel a little better about the whole thing.

 So yes, it feels like we’re financially fucked, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be alright. 

Connection/Friendship

The Weirdness of Social Media

Posted on by noemikjames / 14 Comments

I’ve burnt a lot of bridges in my seven years of blogging. Some of them went up spectacularly for everyone to see. Others flared in the night, when no one was watching. Some smoldered quietly until the foundation finally gave way and some I set fire to without even realizing–it was only when I went back to cross them one day that I realized they were gone.

The number of bloggers who will have nothing to do with me is in the double digits. It’s a significant number of people. I’m sure I’ve pissed off that many people, if not more, in real life, but what’s weird about these people is that not only can I not avoid them, but I can stumble upon not just them, but upon their thoughts and conversations, in their entirety, for me to read.

It’s such an odd phenomena, one that doesn’t really happen in real life. In real life if you see someone you’ve fallen out with you avoid them. You may lock eyes for a moment, or even give an awkward hello, but that is usually as far as it goes. You don’t hang around and read their journal or skim their email or listen in on a conversation they’re having with someone else. Most of the time, once the damage has been done, you never see or hear from them again.

And yet with blogs and comment sections and FB and Instagram, you can never really escape from the shadows of your past. Even if you try to avoid them, your paths will cross eventually. And there are few things weirder than reading a conversation you know no one wants you to participate in.

It’s just a disconcerting thing, one that people never had to navigate before the age of social media.

You may think I failed in my attempt not to write something I will later regret, but I don’t post this to start shit (and I don’t think it’s fodder for shit starting). I harbor no resentment toward anyone, and I’ve assumed responsibility for the parts I played in the various pyrotechnics. It’s just something I’ve noticed (over and over again–there are A LOT people who would rather I didn’t respond to a post, comment or status update) and something I think about. Social media can be awkward terrain, and without proper guideposts, we’re not always sure which way to go. Personally I choose to walk away, and I try hard to do it without my tail between my legs.

Have you burned any bridges in social media? How do you navigate them?

Uncategorized

Benign Shite

Posted on by noemikjames / 3 Comments

Remember how I was worried that posting every day might cause me to publish something I would regret? Well the last couple of days have been kind of difficult and I’m struggling to write about benign shite when so much is swirling around in my head. So I’m not going to force it, because that was not the point of this project. Instead I’m just going to come on here and say that things aren’t great right now, but that I know they’ll surely get better. And I will write something of more substance when they do.

Right now I’m going to avoid pissing someone off by keeping my big “mouth” shut.

Look at me, all grown up.

No-additives Diet/Parenting & Family/Sensory Processing Disorder

Convergence Insufficiency

Posted on by noemikjames / 20 Comments

Today my daughter had an eye appointment that I made almost three months ago. It was with an ophthalmologist who specializes in diagnosing and treating convergence insufficiency. What is that? you ask. Good question.

Until three months ago I had never heard of convergence insufficiency. I didn’t think much of it the first couple of times it was mentioned on the closed FB page for the diet we were following, but after the third or fourth time I started to take note. Whenever a mom posted to express concern about her child’s struggles to read or write, testing for convergence insufficiency was recommended. Once this problem was treated, kids who had previously struggled to read and write began to thrive.

So what is it? Convergence insufficiency is when the eyes struggle to work together to focus on one thing to create a single picture. Individually each eye sees fine–they may even work together well to see far away–it’s coming together at close range that poses a problem. People with convergence insufficiency have to work really hard to see words on a page, even the ones they are writing. They become physically exhausted trying to manage even simple tasks that involve fine motor skills.

Usually children are tested for convergence insufficiency when they are struggling to read and write. My daughter is only in Kindergarten, where everyone is struggling to read and write, so how did I know to get her tested? Once I knew what convergence insufficiency was, I started to recognize some signs.

She has always really struggled with fine motor tasks like drawing, cutting and writing letters. I didn’t think much of it at the time because… normal child development, but in retrospect her level of frustration surrounding these tasks, and the fact that that level of frustration never really dissipated even after the initial learning periods, was a red flag. She also periodically complained of her eyes bothering her. She rubbed her eyes a lot, and would sometimes cover one while doing her homework. When she was reading books, words that she read easily at first became increasingly difficult by the end, at which point she seemed mostly to be guessing what the sentences said based on the illustrations. She was always excited to read when we first sat down, but hated reading by the last page, complaining that she couldn’t read and she’d never be able to. There was also the fact that the OT had placed her in the 10th percentile for visual acuity–evidently she was really bad at copying simple pictures, even for a five year old.

The ophthalmologist recognized right away that my daughter has convergence (and focus) insufficiency, but it wasn’t until I watched her perform a simple test that I saw it for myself. Late in the 1.5 hour appointment the doctor asked my daughter to read two columns of one digit numbers printed in 12 pt font. It took her 31 seconds to read the numbers from the first page–she recited them quickly and easily. She was asked to read numbers again on an almost identical page (only the order of the numbers had changed) immediately after finishing the first, but this time it took her 75 seconds to recite them all, and you could see how fatigued she was and how much she was struggling. The doctor had to remover her hand from the page (she was covering the numbers above the one she was reading to help her focus) multiple times on the second page as well. It was heartbreaking to see how hard it had become for her and I cringed thinking of all the times I’d asked her to finish just one more page of her homework before bed.

The bad news is, my daughter has really been struggling to see so many things for the past couple of years. The good news is 10-12 weeks of in-home and professional therapy should resolve her insufficiencies, probably forever. She doesn’t even need to wear glasses. The other good news is that homework and reading should be much easier and more enjoyable once this problem is resolved.

The last bit of good news is that my intuition was right. I suspected she was struggling and someone validated my concern. After so many weeks of arguing with my husband about what I can and can’t possibly know or determine about my daughter and her behavior, someone confirmed what I believed was true–that something wasn’t right, that my daughter needed help.

I will admit that in the past few weeks I wasn’t feeling super confident that the appointment would be worth it. I worried that I was making more of my daughter’s frustration than was warranted. I mean, didn’t all young kids struggle to read and feel frustrated when they couldn’t? Surely most five-year-olds write their letters and numbers backwards (her teacher had suggested as much). Was I expecting my daughter to be better and smarter than everyone else and then running to a doctor when she wasn’t?

Was I looking for problems when they weren’t there?

After the stress of implementing a diet to address behavior concerns without spousal support, that last question weighed heavily on my mind. And with all the financial stress of our increased childcare expenditures, the idea of throwing away hundreds of dollars on piece of mind seemed like an unforgivable waste. I even had to take an hour off work to get to the appointment in time!

I spent much of today nervous that they would tell me everything was fine, and then guilty that I wanted something to be wrong. It wasn’t until I saw my daughter struggling that I was relieved by her diagnosis, because now I see all the ways this has made her life harder, and I know we can help her so that these everyday tasks are as easy as they should be.

Over 1/3 of kids who are diagnosed with ADD have convergence insufficiency. So many kids with this vision problem are mis- or incompletely diagnosed. The doctor told me that now it is recommended for any child that is receiving an ADD diagnoses be tested for convergence insufficiency before the diagnoses is given. I would bet a lot of money that my sister had it, she was diagnoses with ADD and was the lone person in our family who hated reading and school until early in her adult life (by which time she has probably created strategies to minimize her insufficiencies). I feel so incredibly fortunate that I joined that FB group and learned about this now, so that we can correct it before my daughter develops negative associations with school and reading and her ability to be successful at both.

And now we enter the world of convergence insufficiency. I’m thankful it should be a short stay, and that my daughter will be a happier, less stressed kid, when we leave.

Life

Winter is Coming

Posted on by noemikjames / 13 Comments

California is the home of the Indian Summer. September and October are usually our warmest months. While everyone else is bracing themselves for cooler climes, we’re wearing our tank tops and flip flops.

I’m not about to complain about the weather here, because it’s pretty fucking great. I will say though that by the end of October I am ready for some cooler weather. It’s just hard to register that Thanksgiving is in four weeks when it’s 80 degrees.

About a week ago the weather finally turned. I woke up one morning and had to put my yoga pants on under my robe. The next day I needed slippers in the kitchen. The following night I woke up cold, even with all the blankets on me. I started wearing sweatshirts in the evenings, dressing my son in fleece footy pajamas, and making my daughter wear long sleeves under her princess nightgowns.

I know it never really gets cold here, but I’m loving the nip in the air, the need to pull my sweater around me, that blast of heat from the car vents in the morning. I like that it’s getting colder because that means winter is coming, and with it the holidays.

Thanksgiving is in a few weeks and then we’ll be thrust into the Christmas season. Heck, as far as the stores are concerned the Christmas season is already here! I really love November and December, not so much for the special days themselves, but for the anticipation. And I think this year, for the first time, I can accept the anticipation as its own event, one that doesn’t have to be voided if the days do not live up to my expectation. It’s strange to think that one can take more joy in the anticipation of something than the thing itself, but if that is what works for me, then I’m all for it.

And so I wash my long sleeved shirts, air out the winter jackets, put the fleece blanket on the bed, retrieve my slippers from under the armoire, and get ready for the cold weather and the holidays.

Winter is coming.

What do you like best about this season?

Financial Security

In Search of a More Immediate Reward

Posted on by noemikjames / 27 Comments

I read a couple of months ago (in what I think was a NYT article I’m too lazy to search for) that people who recognize the more immediate benefits of exercise are way more likely to work out than people whose only motivations are long term goals. In other words, the person who counts on that runner’s high is more likely to pound the pavement than the person who is logging miles to lose weight.

This makes perfect sense to me. I’m work out for my mental well-being more than for the physical health benefits. When I’m tired, and pretty sure I’m getting sick, and the last thing I want to do is get on the elliptical (like, tonight, for example), I haul my sorry ass on and get moving because I KNOW I will feel better immediately if I do. I have faith that I will feel better because I have thousands of personal experiences to assure me it’s true, despite my body trying to persuade me that it’s not. And usually I only have to start working out for about five minutes to recognize that I do, in fact, feel better.

I was realizing that this might be part of why I struggle so hard to stay on a budget. The goals are all situated in the future, and there are no immediate rewards (at least not that I have identified) to help me make the hard choice in the present. When there is no immediate reward to tempt me away from the instant gratification of spending, it’s hard to conjure the willpower to do it.

My son started day care two weeks ago, so we’re officially in our tightest longterm financial situation to date. Between the increases at my son’s day care (from what we were paying when my daughter attended) and the monthly fees for my daughter’s after care program, our child care expenses are almost $600 a month more than what we were previously spending. The good news is that I will be getting a 9% raise over three years. The bad news is that CalSTRS increased our required contributions by 2%, so the final raise will only be 7% and I won’t start seeing it until the coming school year. I think my husband is due for another step increase around the time as well.

So there is a little light at the end of this tunnel, but for the time being it’s a narrow and restrictive tunnel and we have to spend wisely if we want to get through it. Basically, I need to get a hold of my spending like yesterday.

And yet I still struggle with making unnecessary purchases.

Part of me want to put some very heavy restrictions in place because it’s the holidays and I know I could go fucking hog wild if I let myself. But part of me knows how good I am at explaining why a certain purchase is still allowed despite the restrictions. I also know how hard it would be for me to make myself a reasonable budget and stick with it. I haven’t ever managed to do that in my entire life.

BUT I NEED TO. We won’t have enough money if I don’t. This isn’t about a far-off financial goal, this is about having enough money to cover child care and buy groceries.

When I was first developing a savings strategy, I calculated how much money I’d have left after I paid for child care, groceries and bills and determined what I could budget in my weekly/monthly “wants” category. This included a pretty generous amount allotted for groceries and accounted for all the other long term bills I’m responsible for. I like the idea of having a set amount for “wants” and not splitting that category up into smaller subcategories like “eating out” or “clothes for the kids.” The reality is that almost everything I buy is really a “want,” and that is a shift in my thinking I desperately need to make. I got so caught up in why I should be able to get something despite my shopping ban this summer, but after reading All Your Worth, I realized that ultimately, all those purchases are “wants,”” not matter how well I can argue otherwise.

I also recognize that I need a way to break my habit of compulsive spending, so I’m setting one “restriction” for myself, and that is that I can’t buy anything in the want category until Sunday, because Sunday is the end of my “fiscal week” and at that point I’ll know how much is left in my “wants” budget to spend. (The one exception would be eating out.)

So I have a tentative budget and a tentative restriction and I hope I can actually stick to it. I just wish I could identify a source of immediate gratification from not buying stuff, so that I could dangle it when my compulsive inner voice is so skillfully leading me astray.

I thought a lot about resuming my practice of posting what I spend here, to wildly mixed conclusions. On the one hand, I KNOW it increases my accountability–I am way more inclined stay honest with you all than I am to stay honest with myself. On the other hand, this compulsive buying thing is a genuine problem for me, the kind of problem I would be working on with a professional if I had the resources to do so. Putting myself out there creates an incredible amount of stress for me, and I’m just not sure that the positives of accountability outweigh the negatives of the stress. So for right now I don’t have any definitive plans to post what I spend, though I’m toying with the idea of posting a  rough outline of my budget spending in each of the three categories (Needs, Wants, Savings), or at the very least sharing how much I went over, or stayed under, my “wants” budget (and maybe also groceries, because that is a spending category that can balloon quickly).

Tomorrow is Monday. I love starting things on Monday. Let’s see how I do.

Life

That Lingering Feeling of “I’m looking for something”

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

I have lost a LOT of things in my life. I’ve misplaced countless others. This means that I’ve spent A LOT of time looking for things.

So. Much. Time.

I’ve noticed that when I really get in the groove of looking for something, it’s hard to get out of that groove. Even after I’ve found the thing, I still approach a spot and thing, maybe it’s in here! I haven’t checked here! Even if I’ve already found it.

Am I the only one who does that? Gets so deep in the “I’m looking for something” groove that it takes almost 24 hours to shake it?

I will admit, that if I have found the thing, it’s such a relief when I remember that I’m not looking for it anymore. That part is kind of nice. Of course if I haven’t found the thing (the more likely scenario) it really bums me out.

It’s such a weird phenomena. It just shows how emotionally invested I get in finding things, the distress reverberates as it dissipates.

In case you’re wondering, I did find the purse with my really expensive sunglasses in it. And then, as an added bonus, I found my second pair of regular glasses behind a piece of furniture in my daughter’s room when I had to move it because she dropped something down there. They had been gone so long I wasn’t even looking anymore. A double win!

Uncategorized

The Tipping Point

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

We’ve reached the tipping point with stuff. It is all over the house, like every clothing drawer and toy bin just exploded. I no longer feel I can manage it and the minute I pick it up, it’s everywhere again.

A second purge is in order. I’m really excited to have a go at the house. I need to do some serious pruning or I might drown.

In two weeks I have the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving off when my kids do not. I’m going to get so much done.

I just need to get through the next 17 days.