Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

A friend of mine was killed on Sunday morning on his way to work. He was run off the road on his motorcycle. He got airlifted to the hospital and went into surgery. Afterwards a clot formed and caused a stroke. He is an organ donor and he will continue on helping other people survive, just like he did, overcoming addictions in his younger years.

I will always remember my friend for driving down from Delaware just to help me move furniture I bought off Craigslist into a room I was renting in Georgetown. I will always remember him for being a huge Eagles fan and having a tattoo of his seats in Veterans’ Stadium.

At any rate, please, while you are driving, keep an eye out for motorcyclists.

This is the main reason I haven’t yet gotten my motorcycle license. I’m scared to death of people driving who do not see me. In the past week, a friend of mine was at a red light and tapped by a driver who was on a cellphone who did not stop. She was slowing down and misjudged the distance. While this particular friend did not sustain injury, he was so startled, he dropped his new bike. (A used Suzuki)

If anything, I am resolved now to sell my motorcycle before the season ends in October. Someone else can take all the risk.

This weekend, at the fish market, I made an observation to my boyfriend. I only bargain in Korean. I usually do not try to bargain in English. I feel like overtures for bargaining or asking for a discount are more well-received in Korean. The only other group I try to bargain with are other immigrants. Is it because I think that they come from a culture that also bargains?

I always get a discount now at the Korean dry cleaning store near my house and I tell boyfriend that next time we go to fish market in DC, I want to check the stall with Koreans first. Even though there were places that might have better fish, I’d like to get a good deal too.

So what about you? When do you bargain? Do you use another language? Do only do it in marketplaces or inside formal stores too?

I pulled out a huge allowance on Saturday morning. More than usual, but I have a few social events coming up. First, I got two rolls of quarters for laundry and dropped off my dry cleaning and got a 20% discount. Then I drove to two different shops to get one of my out of commission sewing machines back into shape. (Not that many places fix them anymore.)

I got gas for 13 cents cheaper per gallon while I was on my errands. I bought lunch for boyfriend and me on Saturday, along with a bottle of wine. ($33. Boyfriend bought a spendy dinner the night before.) After lunch, I hit Target and stocked up on laundry detergent since it was 10 cents an ounce. (But WHY doesn’t Target post unit pricing?! I had to whip out my calculator on my cellphone.) I also bought a few new bathroom items to match the new decor, including a bathmat, squeegee and toilet brush. I put this stuff on my Target card (and I’ve scheduled the outgoing payment already).

I found about $20 dollars in cash in my pockets while I was doing laundry on Saturday afternoon.

We skipped out on a house party on Saturday night, saving ourselves time in the car and gas money. (Plus we heard the next day that the plumbing backed up and people were going outside. Glad we didn’t go!)

Sunday we hit the market. First was lunch for about $25 (split between me and boyfriend). We got a crabcake sandwich and a fresh haddock sandwich with sides and drinks at Eastern Market from the lunch counter. The haddock was expensive, but I have wanted to try it for a while. It’s a $10 sandwich, but it’s an entire deep fried filet. It was moist and juicy inside, and crispy tasty outside with lots of hot sauce in unmarked bottles. I’m glad I got it, but I’m not sure I’ll get it again since it was so expensive. I also bought a little loose sausage meat for 75 cents for a lentil stew later this week, and a brownie ($1.50). Outside, we purchased some corn ($2) and fruit ($4) and headed over to the DC Waterfront for shrimp and clams ($20 total).

I started out Sunday with about $65 and I came back with $23 and some change. Not too bad for the day.

All in all, a good weekend. I finished a knitted baby blanket, washed some clothes, gathered some stuff for eBay and cleaned my apartment a bit from the mess of construction. I have $100 left for the week.

Tom Konrad at AltEnergyStocks.com emailed me to let me know of a new post he has on a Wind ETF called FAN. Personally I have some issues with wind power. The turbines are louder than you think and can shred a bird pretty bad. On the other hand though, wind power farms aren’t usually in densely populated areas. If you are interested in energy investing, an ETF is a good way to go because it spreads your risk in a basket of stocks, similar to a mutual fund, but not quite the same thing. There just aren’t that many alternative/clean energy investments out there unless you go with some smaller riskier companies or large conglomerates that only make a small fraction of revenue from this sector as Tom points out.

I especially liked the post because there is a model portfolio at the bottom with a sample of dollar allocations. Sure I don’t have that kind of money to invest, but it’s interesting that he’s put CREE in there as a power company. I’ve been watching CREE for years because they were the first to make a blue LED. I just never bought it because I never had the money at the right time. To me, it’s a stock to buy only when it’s priced right. I’m glad that he thinks it’s a winner too.

The LA Times recently ran an article on other low-carbon emissions power efforts. There’s geothermal & solar/mirror/steam power. Some of these companies are worth noting because they have super star backers like the founders of Google. A lot of the mainstream energy companies are dipping their toes into these technologies so keep an eye out for some of these technologies to emerge over the next decade.

FWIW, a friend of mine told me that rail transport uses less fuel than trucking for freight transport. Apparently Warren Buffett has put more money in rail stocks as well. Some food for thought.

For disclosure, I’m still holding AMAT in a long position. It’s considered an alternative energy stock since they make capital equipment for making solar cells. And man, I’m glad that oil fell $4 a bbl yesterday!

No, not talking about politics here. I get enough of that in DC just be living here.

I’m talking about my credit cards and this year’s goals. The bathroom renovation was a major setback for me. But I ran some numbers and I’m *slightly* better off than I initially reported on my Net Worth IQ graph ($200, not enough to change the graph really.)

I knew deep down that the main thing for me is that I can pay installment credit off very well. My problem is the revolving credit. I use one credit card regularly. The other one is a balance transfer card and sits in my desk. It’s never been swiped, ever. So while I’m great at paying off the balance transfer card’s mega balance, the smaller balance on my revolving card never seems to disappear completely. I have some regular subscription charges that go on it, but that’s not really why. On a day to day basis, it’s the card I use for regular purchases, like books or clothes. One thing I learned from one of my girlfriends is never to buy food on credit. Thus I also never purchase gas on credit either. (Too bad I only learned that since I started blogging.) All consumable items are paid in cash or debit. This strategy has definitely helped, but I need something more.

I need patience.

I figured I can pay everything off, but I also figured out it will take me about 2 years. And I’m REALLY impatient. I have no windfalls coming towards me. I have two CD’s about to expire that will cover about 2/3rds of the balance on the small card, and then I can put that one away by October or November.

Hooray for handy boyfriends!

Several months ago, boyfriend’s dog accidentally peed on my laptop. Instead of paying the ridiculous $750 fee to repair my laptop or buying me a new one, we decided that he was going to try fixing it. eBay has a ton of MacBook parts on sale from other damaged laptops that weren’t worth fixing.

For about $250, boyfriend got a new logic board, another $42 for a new battery and probably another $30 for some other parts and tools. Boyfriend spent a lot of evenings working on my laptop and now it’s back!

Was it worth the wait? Yes. Absolutely. I bought the laptop used from a friend who left me about 72 hours of music on it. She’s a world traveler so she had many songs and genres I would never seek out. The cost savings is more than half of the fee I’d have to pay Apple for their insane policies. Luckily I wasn’t totally out of commission with access to other computers around me, either at home or at work. It’s good stuff.

Hooray!

If so, please leave a comment with your results so Johno can read them all and I don’t have to forward them.

Problems? Try Baking 911. It’s an informative troubleshooting site.

Thanks!

With permission, my blogpal, Johno from the Minstry of Minor Perfidy, has allowed me to reprint his original recipe for whole wheat bread. Try baking it on the weekend. Start in the morning and have loaves ready by dinner time! It is a commitment, but it’s worth it. Lately I’ve made it with a cup of regular whole wheat and a cup of white whole wheat in the first part and a cup of white whole wheat in the dry mix. It’s the King Arthur brand flour and it makes a lighter but still tasty bread.

Also, if you take his advice and work with a wetter dough, it will be lighter with bigger bubbles. It’s worth varying the wetness to figure out what kind of texture you want in the final product.

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Today I have $24 in my pocket. I’ve been more parsimonious with my cash lately. I just spend less on lunch. At any rate, I have $24 for the next two days. Since lunch will be provided on Friday by my office, and I’m not planning on having dinner out on tonight (maybe a beverage though after the Frugal Duchess book signing).

$24 is more than plenty till Friday. I started out the week with about $25 in my pocket (meaning last Friday when I usually give myself pocket money). I had a bagel/cream cheese for a snack on Saturday and a really delicious Chinese dinner Saturday night with a friend. I paid by debit card and she gave me cash ($18). I took out another $40 at the grocery store on Sunday and stayed home all day to bake bread for dinner on Tuesday. I bought lunch Monday - Wednesday at work but have managed to eat at home or at a friend’s all week. Most weeks, I would have dined out at least three times, and I have. But two times were at the home of a friend. (Cost, 1 loaf of homemade bread!)

There’s half a tank of gas in the car and I usually pay that by debit anyway. Knowing I have a bunch of social events next week, I will probably take out my usual $140, but I wonder how long I can make that last…

It’s an apples to apples thing. My friend is a long-time quilter and I’ve been looking at quilt fabrics a lot recently. Together we went to the Quilt Patch in Fairfax, VA over the weekend.

I had recently been shopping withMrs. Micah at G Street Fabrics. We also walked over to a nearby JoAnn’s Fabrics. I invited Mrs. Micah out to G Street because they were having a 30% off sale on fabrics and notions. There was a lot of fabulous stuff there. It was hard to resist, but I walked out only with some quilt batts for a quilt for my nephew and some spares.

There’s a couple of things that I’ve noticed.

1. Fire retardant batts are really expensive. Like twice as expensive. This is important for children’s stuff, but not so much for adults. Next time I make a quilt that’s not for a kid, I’m going to stay away from the batts that cost twice as much. (One $100 of materials, that can be as much as a 15% savings.)

2. Just because JoAnn’s has it cheaper, doesn’t mean it’s the same thing. I didn’t even know there was a JoAnn’s Fabrics behind the G Street store. The quilt fabrics are about $7 a yard. G Street is usually $10. The Quilt Patch, about $8-9. Now here’s the catch, the fabrics may not be the same. They LOOKED the same, or so I thought. My quilter friend advised me to be careful because the fabric might be from the same manufacturer, but ‘diluted’. The print may have one less color, or less saturated dyes, or be of slightly different weight fabric, i.e. thinner. Have you ever bought something thinking it was exactly the same thing? I am slightly wary of generics at the supermarket for this reason. The quality might not be there on something when it really counts. (I find generic cereals just aren’t that good.)

3. I like independent stores better than chains, but let me tell you, I felt pretty bad when Mrs. Micah picked up a spool of serger thread at JoAnn’s and it was cheaper. But JoAnn’s didn’t have the colors she needed anyway, so whew! There are things for which you shouldn’t pay a premium for. Because the thread was packaged and from the same manufacturer, shopping for the best price made a lot of sense. The crazy thing is, the totally independent, single store quilt shop had the uber fancy quilting thread for just under $9, whereas G Street had it for $10. (FWIW, JoAnn’s didn’t have it at all. It’s the King Tut variagated thread.)

So I got sucked into a new hobby if you can’t tell. I’m trying to keep myself from building up lots of extra stash with this hobby. I might even have to buy an iron and ironing board for this one. Maybe sell off the motorcycle to buy a new sewing machine. Who knows where this path to crafting hell will lead me? But so far so good:

This quilt was for my friend who got married in Puerto Rico. I made it for her baby born this spring. She told me the nursery was going to be jungle themed.