Baby Finances

I love "The Office" it is absolutely hysterical. Ridiculously hysterical. It makes me belly laugh. BELLY LAUGH! I'm a terrible person - I'm not handing out candy this year. I got out of work too late. By the time I got home people were already out trick-or-treating, and I hadn't even gone out to buy any candy yet. I don't remember Halloween involving crazy dress up costumes like it seems to now. We were all about paper hats and plastic swords and one cape. One year my brother would be a vampire - the next year I would be a witch. Then Little Bro would be a pirate or whatever. We never bought anything that wouldn't get 1K miles of use. Now kids are in complete lion, tigger , whatever costumes - nothing home made. It has got to be crazy expensive. Glad I don't have little money suckers. I learned a new slang term today. No it wasn't lollerskates or leafycaust - it was 'crop dusting.' Look it up on urban dictionary. Ingenuity...

In this new organizational phase of my life - which seems to come along about every nine months or so - and generally only lasts for about 6 months.... but whatever that's a different topic all together... This financial organization/investing/whatever you want to call it is effing difficult. There is a ton of advise out there. Most of it crappy. A lot of the advise doesn't apply to me because I'm too young. It seems like there isn't much advise out there for young investors other than "start early." Thanks retards. I got that one early on. I knew it was important to invest for retirement. My parents did a good job of banging that one in to my head. However, I never really got those lessons that are just as important in investing. Stuff like how much you need to save, how to invest it, mutual funds vs. stock, asset allocation, risk acceptance, load, fees, complicated tax law. I'm going to need a good tax person. Anyone have any suggestions for MA...

Lollerskates! Not the ceiling cat. Not even the leafycaust. Rather it's fucking cold outside. Last year it didn't snow until like Janurary. The wind chill right now, in October, is 30 degrees. That's right, 30F. Crazy. What the hell happened to fall? We got like 3 months of it last year, this year we get like three weeks. We got screwed! Election is in a week. Pretty exciting stuff. Some guy who used to be a baseball statastican applied it to the election - look at all the polls - weighting them - giving trend lines etc. Pretty interesting stuff. Look it up. I'm way thrown off by it getting dark so early. I walk home and it's dark already. It's crazy. It's going to be even worse next week when we switch off of daylight savings time. It's terrible. It will be light when I wake up - but it will start getting dark at like 4pm. I hate this time of year. Hate it. Hate it. I always just want to stay in bed and sleep and not do anything el...

How can something that used to make you feel so great make you feel so crappy? I'm super frustrated by life right now. I'm frustrated that I can't turn to the people that I normally turn to. I'm frustrated because I think other people are getting further in life faster than me. I'm frustrated because I even care about what other people are doing. I'm frustrated that other people compare themselves to where I am. I'm frustrated by success and I'm frustrated by failure or perceived failure. Why can't I be happy with what I have? Why can't people stop comparing themselves to other people? I'm the only one in this situation that has the potential to change. I need to do that. I need to figure out how it's going to work.

Ever been super obsessed with a particular song? Quite often I can't help but play the same song on repeat - for half an hour - multiple times a week. It's obsessive I know, but I can't help myself. I'm not sure if it's always the melody, the words, the message, or just the feeling the song gives me. I just can't myself. Right now I'm listening to "Northern Downpour" by Panic at the Disco for like the 1,000,000th time this week. Can't help it. I've been uber obsessed with music for the last week or so since I bought my new IPod. Fortunately/Unfortunately I found my old IPod on Thursday. I wouldn't have bought a new IPod if I didn't think the old one was gone forever. So it's unfortunate that I spent money on something I didn't really need. But I will admit that the new IPod is super sweet. Like crazy sweet. I'm impressed - and therefore don't really regret the purchase - only the dis-necessity of it. Why d...

I started taking piano lessons this weekend. It seems like everyone else took them as kids - but I never did. I always wanted to learn. As I was whining last week about not having anything to do to fill up my time - Matt suggested I write stuff down. Well, I did that. Piano lessons was up there on the top of my list. So I found a teacher (thanks CL.) Who seems really cool. And I'm going to start learning how to play. I'm really retarded at it right now - but hopefully some day I'll be able to play for real. Maybe someday I'll be good enough to play something that you can recognize . ha!

Some really basic research has me thinking that the US consumer is changed forever because of the perfect storm of rising energy cost plus a tanking global economy. Consumers have decreased spending on the fears of unemployment and recession. A short term loss of consumer confidence is neither unusual or stupid. The stock market needs to re-set after too long of unqualified over investment and therefore over spending on companies that are not actually making a good profit. Speculation is for those searching for gold, not those looking to make money. I think that this perfect storm though is going to change how consumers chose to spend their money. Not just in terms of real estate and housing but also what credit is acceptable. Most people are taking a good hard look at themselves right now to try to figure out their financial future. This is making them cut back on frivolous items they previous purchased on a regular basis. Add this to the current "going green" and ...

I had this dream where I was at a computer store and I was buying something. God knows what I was buying, but everyone kept telling me not to buy a brand. After everyone had there say there was no other brand that I could buy - everyone told me not to buy something. Then I was somewhere else and I was sitting in the car in a parking lot. We started making out. Then he asked me to marry him, then some cop came along and found us getting it on, and the cop shot him in the head and just left. Effing messed up dream. Messed up.

With my old company getting sold there are a lot of implications I'm trying to sort out. It's very frustrating because, me being me, can't concentrate on one thing at a time. I start at one end and 20 minutes later I'm doing something completely different. Not that it doesn't need to be done, I'm just not focused on the original task. So this whole thing has gotten me to look closer at my overall financial picture and I can't say that I'm extatic about it. I'm probably like every other 25 year old in the world. Haven't saved enough, doesn't have a big enough savings account, IRA/401K is pitifully small, doesn't have a lot in long-term savings. I have loans from school and my car. Basically, I'm still poor and I just graduated a few years ago. I feel like I'm on my feet, I'm not going to fall down, but at the same time I can't run a mile. So, I've been looking into everything to try to figure out how to train f...

The first real company I worked at got sold the other day. All I can say is that I just felt a sigh of relief wash over me. I felt happy - not so much because I made money - but because I felt closure about the entire situation. Like it was finally done, nothing was hanging over my head, and I could close a bad chapter of my life. It wasn't all bad there. I learned a whole hell of a lot. My boss there was pretty amazing. He taught me a ton of information. A ton. I learned a lot about how businesses work, how to do some things well, how to do some things wrong. I really took a lot away from that experience and I apply it everyday at my current place. Closure is a great thing in life. Wish I could get closure on some other situations in life. I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. I have to admit that I've been working through a lot of issues lately. I much better understand why I am motivated and what drives me to do the things I do. I'm getting to th...

I'm still like a 2-3 beer queer. It's pathetic. I'm not sure I want to up my tolerance though.

I've thought about it before but was never able to articulate it. Art is an intensely person experience, one that can be shared, but is intensely personal. It's not what art looks like, what colors are there, or what object is shown. Rather the important part of art is how you feel about it. Feelings are just there. They can be contained, but not necessarily controlled, nor should they be. Capturing feeling and intensity and utilizing them often has awesome (or horrendous) results. You can't make yourself feel a certain way. You can do the right things so that you have the potential to have certain feelings, but you can't force them. I never really got it. It's not something that needs to be controlled. It just is what it is. Intensely personal, completely honest, and just there. Similar to art.

I keep looking at houses in Cambridge. I love Cambridge. Love it. Love my lifestyle right now. Love the fact I can walk to work, and the grocery store, and just about wherever else I need to go. Love the fact that I'm so close to the city, but far enough away that I don't have to deal with it. Love the people. The problem is the housing prices. I'm not sure that I can afford a house by myself in Cambridge, unless it's a complete crap hole. Minimum for something acceptable is going to be 350-400K. I'd need to get married to someone in a similar income bracket to be able to afford that. I don't see married in my close future, hell, I don't even see serious boyfriend in the near future. So, I'm trying to face the reality of the situation that I can't afford the type of house I want. So I see two solutions, either move to Somerville, or get married. Any suggestions?

Maybe homelessness is useful in combating global warming. I was walking home today and watched a few homeless people picking cans out of the trash. They always come down the street on garbage day to collect the cans and bottles that they can refund as well. (I'm way to lazy to take those cans back to the store to get the deposit back. I'll just throw them in the recycle bin.) I bet most people are like me and are too lazy to take them back to the store, or they don't have enough room to store empty cans. So maybe homeless people are useful in terms of reducing our carbon footprint because they are highly motivated to do something about it. How do we get everyone to be highly motivated to reduce the causes of global warming?

Like feeling less depressed and bored about life. And reassuring you that you're not bipolar. I have issues, being a hypocondriac occationally when I'm bored and lonely is one of them. Don't judge me. Little bro came up with a great idea. Write down all the hobbies that you've been thinking about, or stuff that you've wanted to learn, and try each of them out for a couple weeks and see what you think. If you want to continue do so, if you don't then try another one on your list. Me thinks this is a great idea. I need to entertain myself better. I think it also makes me a better person, a more interesting person, and makes me something that I want to be. So far the options I have are going back and playing clarinet again, learning to play piano, running, gym, re-learning French, re-learning German, cooking, glass blowing, painting, basketweaving, joining a book club, ninja lessons, learning to make my own beer, juggling, sailing lessons, pole dancing less...

So Josh recommend that I use Mint a while ago. I was using MSMoney for my finances and thought that I should continue using that. The problem with MsMoney is that it doesn't sink my bank accounts correctly. I'm not sure why it doesn't, but it doesn't. It actually makes me really angry that it can't work correctly. Anyways, this week I finally took the plunge and set up an account with Mint. I LOVE the way that it works. I can see all of my finances from all of my accounts all at once in a logical well layed out way. The budgeting portion of the tools could be better, and by could I mean it could use some serious work. Especially the way that you set up your budget. I can't just put in what my expected income will be for each month and the set up percentages of that in each catagory. I also think the part of the problem that I have with it is that it has too many categories. I guess if you really want to drill down it's fine, but I want the one sl...

Man, I feel like I'm finally starting to get my life together. I've been so disorganized for so long. I feel like it's been holding me back in a weird kind of way. I'm glad that I'm getting organized. I feel like a real adult. I think that I've been avoiding being an adult for so long because I'm afraid of the implications. But I feel as if I can get myself together life will be happier and I will start to be able to achieve some of the stuff that I've always wanted. I just need to make my personal life more like my work life. Set a goal, make a plan, go for it. I'm not sure why I've not really been able to do that in my personal life; but I haven't. I think I've been stopping myself. I'm all over this shit this week. Can we just talk about Ninja classes for a minute. Yes my dear friends, there are indeed ninja classes. Maybe I should join ninja class for shits and giggles. Who doesn't want to say that they take ninj...

I'm making bread today! I did some of the stuff on my to do list today. Note to everyone reading who doesn't know me very well, I never actually intend to do everything on my list. It's always a work in progress. I'm so close to finishing my laundry I can almost taste it. I tried running to Au Chocolat today - but they were closed :-( Which means I ran all the way down near South Station for nothing!!! Then I came home, did some laundry, went grocery shopping, now I'm making bread. While the bread is rising I'm going to take some stuff down to storage. I'm so organized! You should be really proud of me. I'm never this on top of things. Can I also mention that I only did one trip around the super market? I even made a list. My friends HATE going to the store with me. I do circles around the store picking up stuff that looks good, then I figure out how I'm going to use it, then I run around getting all the items I'm forgetting, running...

Ever have one of those days where you are actually motivated to get stuff done. Especially the stuff that you've been putting off for a long time? This is one of those days for me. It's pretty awesome actually. I've gotten a lot of stupid things accomplished that I've been putting off for a while. Like laundry, cleaning up my room, bills, organizing, etc. Stupid stuff that has got to get done, but I've just been completely uninterested in doing it. I think it will make me much more productive if I have everything together. I won't feel so disorganized and overwhelmed. That's my biggest problem. Letting things get so bad that I feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. That's not a good place to e. I'm not good at the daily maintance of getting stuff done. I think I have to wait until things get to crisis mode before I'll act. I guess it's one of those, it's not priority until it's a fire. I need to get better a...

Can I just say that it is one of the most entertaining shows that I've seen in a while. Like truly entertaining. Totally just re-watched season 1 today. OMG when does season 2 come out on DVD??

That's the best description for my week. Just about everything that could be crappy - did. Just about everything that could go well ended up going crappy. The end of the day on Friday was just a relief. We worked our butts off getting shipments out, and did it, just barely. I had to deal with a crappy temp, crappy customers, and crappy co-workers. I got through it. Went to bed last night at like 7pm and didn't get out of bed until like 1:30 this afternoon. That's right. I did nothing in my bed for what? 18 hours. I think I feel better now. My parents aren't able to sell their house just yet. The people that were trying to buy their old house either couldn't get a loan, or chose to stop trying to get one. They want to rent the house from my parents, and they have two kids. The kids were planning a Halloween party at my parents old house ( ummm houses so do not close that fast to move in inside of a week.) So they have to close on the new house at the e...

So Big Bro wants to kill Little Bro and I. After that "interesting email" yesterday further exchange occurred . Last year Big Bro whined and whined about how he just moved out on his own and had no mixing bowls. Every time someone asked him what he wanted for Christmas he said mixing bowls. So of course after that email I email everyone back with " OMG MIXING BOWLS!!!!" Big Bro returns with " OMFG NO MIXING BOWLS!!!!" I send this link: http://icanhascheezburger.com/ 2008/04/16/funny-pictures- meow-mix/ Little Bro "accidentally" emails everyone with: I was thinking we should get Big Bro this . I can't help myself. I was like, No little bro. I think he'd like this better. Stony silence ensued. I love it! We won!

Can I just say that my family is hilarious? Absolutely crazy. I know, we have the crazy family reunion thing twice a year, and yes we have a name for it. Kind of like Oktoberfest. Only without the Oktober. It's always fun. I think lately everyone has been trying to up the ante. I'm trying to get my mom to do a Ghetto version. Unlike my uncle Mark who printed us all up tee-shirts with his theme, I want to buy everyone wife beaters and use a sharpie to write up my theme. Then have stuff like white trash desert and play stick ball. Hilarity ensues. For the last two days we have been going back and forth about Iron Chef Thanksgiving. Either the weekend before or after my mom, and my siblings are all going to have a different thanksgiving ingredient that we have to "iron chef" into some strange non-traditional dish. Like one person has turkey, one apples, one pumpkin, and one sweet potatoes. We're going with a Mexican (read spicy) theme. This is going to b...

I finally went back to yoga today. It's been a while. Trust me. My body could definitely tell that it's been a while. Yoga can be a really great workout - and it doesn't have to be torture if you can get your mind in the right place. It's kind of like running. If you can get your mind in the right place you can keep going for a really long time and not realize it. But if you're mind is not there - then the running is not there either. Probably like every 3 or 4 times that I go I get to hear someone either farting or quifing. Today's class was like a 50/50 mix of guys and girls. So there was equal chance of hearing either. About a third of the way into class we go from like down dog to warrior 2 (you yoga people know what I'm talking about) and someone totally ripped one. Not just like baby fart - but like real fart. The class was really good though, no one said anything, the instructor didn't even flinch, and we all just kept on yogaing. All...

Word. It was a fun wedding. Check out the pics on picasa. It was good to see everyone from high school again. I was hoping to see a few more people, but they didn't end up showing up. That made me sad. It was good though. A bit too much like old times sometimes. A bit too like new times sometimes. Interesting to see where everyone was at in life. Everyone takes a different path and develops at different rates. I'm not really sure where I'm at on the scale. Some parts of life go really well, others are in the pooper. I guess I need to pull myself together a bit more. Maybe I should work on that. Yoga tomorrow. This should be interesting. I haven't done this for a while.

A) I love my job. Love it love it love it. B) The people I work with are awesome. C) I'm a rockstar! So I totally sold enough stuff in the last two days to pay for my salary for the rest of October. I feel like the work I've been putting in is finally starting to pay off. That's not even all the marketing stuff that I've done that hasn't really been utilized to its full effect. I believe that the technical information that I've been able to communicate is going to be essential to the marketing effort in proving that we have a valuable product, and therefore deserve value based pricing not commodity based pricing. I've also shown that we can get significantly higher margin than we've gotten in the past. Like CRAZY margin. All because I can properly communicate the technical advantages of our product and therefore 'prove' to people that we have a very valuable product that they can't get somewhere else and therefore need to pay our price...