Money, money, money.

Breaking news: I managed NOT to spend money in this candy shop.

My apologies for being an inconsistent blog writer.  It happens.  But holy cow, May is almost over already and I really had meant to write more this month. Recap: May has been Operation Consumption Liberation's official month of Reduced Frivolous Spending, the unessential goods and service month, and I laid out in this length post here what constitutes frivolous spending in my book, and committed to spending no more than $132 on frivolous things this month.  And as the month winds down, I can report that I've done pretty well with this whole budget thing (though not as well as I thought I had ten minutes ago--math is not my strong suit).

My frivolous spending since I checked in with $32 spent on May 6:

• $3.25--hot cocoa @ SeaTac Dilletante
• $2.87--coffee and donut @ EWR's Dunkin' Donuts 
• $40--dinner in Astoria, NY w/ JC and WR
• $2.50--coffee @ Chappaqua Station
• $7.70--pizza @ EWR
• $2--bagel @ Eltana
• $2--coffee @ Bean City
• $9--movie @ NW Film Forum w/GM
• $3--cupcake @ Cupcake Royale
• $9--3 tomato plants @ U-District Farmers Market (though is this really frivolous...
• $1.99--pint of Honey Cinnamon frozen custard
• $2--half of an elephant ear at Folklife w/CW.

*May 7-May 30 Total Frivolous Spending: $85.31

*May 1-May 30 Total Frivolous Spending: $117.31

*Remaining Frivolous Spending Budget for May 31: $14.69

Expense worthy: $2 Eltana wood-fired bagel

 

While the no-spending thing has been challenging at times, I have not suffered too much this month. Which is good, because as someone who is under-employed at present, I really NEED to have a tight budget. Which is tricky because right now, it feels like every single valuable thing I own is falling apart.

Example A: the car mechanic tells me that my car needs an est. $2774 worth of repairs and you know that auto mechanic estimations are always low, because they're sure to find two more parts that must be replaced in the process. Considering that I bought said-car two years ago for $4300...  It seems like I'm better off spending that money to get a newer car.   Wait, what money?  Do I need a car that bad?  I could live without it, but it would compromise some things, like my volunteering and where I seek employment.  Plus, I like the freedom of having my own car.  It IS a luxury though.

Car, why do you make me suffer so?

Example B: I noticed this week that the laptop which I'm typing this on now is splitting along the seam of the screen.  If I close it, it gaps open a quarter of an inch at one corner.  Note that I purchased said laptop in early 2006.  I've added RAM, updated this and that, replaced batteries, but let's face it, this thing is kind of a dinosaur.  It weighs 17 pounds.  I've been debating a replacement for a full year.  It needs to happen soon.  Frivolous spending?  Well, no, I'm a writer, I can even write it off on my taxes, I suppose.  But I do have a second laptop though it has less RAM, less stuff on it, and I bought it used--it's probably older than this one.  It does weigh less though...  I should probably dump both of them for a new, super-light, super-fast machine. 

Money-worries face.

Example C: Half of my regularly-worn long sleeved shirts have rips or holes in the arms.  Some have been mended once or twice already. As of yesterday, both of my wear-everyday-fall-thru-spring boots' zippers are broken.  My socks are holey.  I need new clothes.

And so on. 

Given these expected expenses and my under-employment, this month's practice has certainly made me think more about money and its role in my life.  I hate that making money and spending money preoccupy so much of my thoughts and energy, be it taking crap writing jobs for crap pay so I can pay for home Internet service (sadly, a must-have) or using that Internet service to search for less crappy jobs with less crappy pay.

I am taking steps to remedy my situation, but I am also trying to be patient and to take actions that honor my aspirations and values.  Yes, there are days when I think to myself, "you just need to buckle down and take any  job with benefits that will have you."  And then there are days when I think about how unhappy I used to be, and what I changed to make my life more peaceful and happier.  On those days, I know that, while taking the first full-time job with benefits I can find may settle my money worries for the time being, it likely will be at the cost of the balanced and content life I've worked so hard to have.

As this month comes to a close, I think I'm going to continue to set myself a frivolous spending budget.  I like these questions from And Then She Saved to help me determine whether or not something is frivolous or, as she puts it, "expense worthy."  I'll be applying these questions soon in my car, clothes, and computer decisions!

No expense NY fun: walk the Brooklyn Promenade on a sunny afternoon.

 

Oh yeah, recap of my efforts to add more outdoor outings this month! Though the weather has not been terribly cooperative, I've managed to squeeze some nice outings in: a park outing in NY with my sister-in-law MR, my 7-month-old twin niecews, and their dog; a Greenlake walk with CI and daughter S; strutting the Brooklyn Promenade and visiting the Astoria Sculpture Park with JC; playing corn-hole BBQ at MO & QH's; and a few runs, walks, and a 36+ mile bike ride out to Redhook with CW. If you want to go for a pedal or a walk with me, summer is just around the corner!

I'll be posting again tomorrow as NO CAFFEINE MONTH kicks off....

Low Gas Wrap

Cherry blossom avenue: so, so pretty!

I’m a little amazed at how rapidly April flew by.  For Low Gas Consumption Month, I’d meant to write a commentary about Earth Day and the environment, but time got away from me, and here we are on, the first of May. 

Ahh, spring, you sure took your sweet time arriving this year!

I drove up to Shoreline to volunteer three times this month.  Other than that, I didn't get in my car--driving approximately 40 miles for the whole month.  When I was driving to Shoreline last Saturday morning, I felt like I was dreaming because it felt so foreign to me after a two-week break.  Then I realized I better snap out of it, because driving in that kind of mental state is dangerous! 

If only I-5 were always so unoccupied.

I confess, I do enjoy driving.  But I also enjoy walking and biking (especially when it isn’t raining!), and I find the practice of riding the bus to be beneficial.  (The loss of control over when you leave and when you arrive offers good practice in patience and adaptation for much more serious loss-of-control situations.  And, for a writer, there is always someone of intrigue on the bus.) 

Anyway, now that my low gasoline consumption is winding down, I intend to continue using alternate forms of transportation more than I did before.  The price in gas hasn’t exactly dropped; CO2 emissions still aren’t good for the environment; and the weather is still continuing to improve (fingers crossed).  I’m setting a loose goal for myself here and now: I am going to try to consume no more than one tank of gas a month.  Of course, things do come up (multiple airport runs, vacations), and I won’t punish myself for that.  But I would like to incline my mind to consider other options before driving.

Goal: more biking around Greenlake this summer.

Not that you need any more pushing than the price at the pump, but I really want to encourage you all to try driving less.  We all have excuses of why we need to drive.  It does take some mental and logistical rearranging to bike or carpool or bus, and there are times in life when that kind of thought is in much shorter demand than cash for gas.  For those of you with young children, I know it is often impractical to impossible to ditch the car.  But there are also the undeniable benefits of biking and walking with kids: it doesn’t just promote physical activity, but the world outside our homes offers an endless learning lab. 

Walk learning opportunity #23: is it a feral cat or not?

For those of you in Seattle, Friday, May 20 is the official 2011 Bike to Work Day.  If you’ve got yourself a pair of wheels, give a bike commute a try on this one day.

Anyway, Operation Consumption Liberation now moves onto my second month of curbing my frivolous spending, the Goods and Services edition.

Adventures in Cycling

I had Lasik three months ago.  This means my vision has been fluctuating a bit.  It is fairly stable at this point, but certain things on certain days make my eyes extra tired and thus, my vision a bit blurrier than I'd like it to be post-expensive-scary surgery.  Among the bad eyesight triggers: focusing on my smartphone's screen too much and for too long; not getting enough sleep; and cold/windy conditions which dry my eyes out.  So on Thursday, I biked to my optometrist's office in my 3-month, post-surgery check up.

It was a rainy, cold, breezy morning--which I'll say more about later.  Anyway, biking in, my eyes got all dried out from the wind and cold, and needless to say, my eyes did not "perform" so well when I did the eye tests.  The eye doctor saw quite a few patches of dryness and recommended I start using the gunky night drops again.  (Blech.  They give me itty bitty styes, which are harmless, really, but frigging annoying. But if the doctor says...)  He also advised I visit with his buddy in the glasses department for some spiffy goggles for biking.

As much as I'd love to drop $60 on some fancy goggles, I can't afford that right now, so I walked three blocks to Big 5 Sports and investigated their offerings. They didn't have any biking goggles, per se, but they did have protective eye wear for racquetball and also for sharp shooting.  I went with the youth/women's sized sharp shooting glasses, for the handy benefit of UV protection.  Check 'em out!

So that's what I'm biking around wearing.  I feel pretty bad ass.

Anyway, as I mentioned, Thursday (April 7) was a cold, wet, breezy morning.  Thursday, like pretty much every day in April up to that point, was also a cold, wet, breezy day.  Remember my post two weeks ago where I discussed typical April weather in Seattle?  I had this cute little chart, remember, that showed an average of ~2 inches of rain for the entire month of April and average high/low temperatures of 58 and 43 degrees F?  I was, like, "oh sure, it rains in April, but not like constantly, it's much better than March."  Okay, yes, it is better than March.  But "much better"?  That's a gross overstatement, given the weather during the first week of April this year.  GROSS.

This is a La Nina year.  Now I'm one of those people who gets El Nino and La Nina confused, and thinks that the two weather phenomena only happen on leap years or something, not whenever the water temperature in the Pacific does X or Y.  Let's face it, if La Nina is the opposite of El Nino, then I'm the La Nina of a meteorologist. My approach to weather forecast is: well, it did this last year.  I'm sure there really are insights I could gain from last year's weather, but assuming that this year's weather will be just like last year's weather is not the insight I should be taking home.  Last April, it was warmish and fairly dry and lovely.  And then right around Mother's Day, it started to dump rain and didn't stop until the 4th of July.  So if that was El Nino and this is La Nina, then it should be a fantastic late spring and early summer, right???  Oh, good gawd, it's time to stop this erroneous speculating!

So instead, let me just inform you that, in the first week of April, Seattle got 2.01 inches of rain.  That's the monthly average!  And let me also tell you that the average low for the first week of April 2011 was 39.6 F and the average high for the first week of April 2011 was 49 F. A little colder than usual, but not revolutionary, especially for early in the month--but that wind chill has been horrible!

This less-than-desirable weather has not made an easy introduction to my month of low gas consumption.  I expressed my fear of riding my bike in the rain in this previous post.  Now that I've been doing it for a week, I'm less afraid of wiping out.  Instead, I'm afraid of freezing my arse off.  And then sweating like a pig for a bit and then freezing more because I'm wet from sweat.  But it is improving.  It's a balmy 55 degrees F right now, and Friday was a gorgeous sunshine explosion.

Jumping on your bike is easier when it looks like this out your front door.

Still, I am doing it, the whole no-driving-my-car thing (except for when I volunteer--what a glorious drive to Shoreline that is!).  And biking up hills is getting easier (muscles adapt faster than you think!), and I'm better tolerating cars and faster cyclists zipping past me with looks of annoyance on their faces. 

I have a lot of different objectives in this year of consuming less.  One objective is to push myself outside my comfort zone.  While I did have some uncomfortable sugar cravings in January, and had to do some extra cooking in February, and decline wine in March, none of those monthly challenges REALLY pushed me to do something I was afraid to do.  This month has already pushed me to face several fears, and there have been days when I've wondered if succeeding in this particular challenge is worth my heightened level of anxiety.  Right now, I think it is. I need to push through anxiety about a whole lot of things in my life, so I can just DO them.  I'm building muscles with this month's challenge so that I can go forth and conquer in other aspects of my life.  Definitely worth it.

Tough.

Almost Pedal Time... (!)

http://atom.smasher.org/gas-station/

My challenge for the month of April is a biggie.  In fact, while I’ve been a little intimidated by all of my previous challenges, I have to confess, I’m nervous as hell about this next one.  Because April is the month I’ve chosen to cut back my consumption of gasoline.

Now, anyone who drives a car or pays any attention to the news knows that, recently, the price of gasoline has been increasing faster than you can say Exxon.  GasBuddy.com has this feature where you can chart out the historical gas retail price averages for many North American markets over different time periods, ranging from one month to six years.  According to the chart I pulled up for Seattle, average gas prices for regular unleaded have gone up 60 cents per gallon since Christmas Day, and half of that price increase has been in the last month.  That's a 1-cent increase per day.  As I’m writing this, the average price of gas per gallon in Seattle is $3.748, $0.206 cents higher than the national average. 

So my upcoming month of limited gasoline consumption is certainly timely from a budget perspective.  Of course, when I decided to embark on my Operation Consumption Liberation in late December, back in the days when the Seattle average gas price was $3.18 (and I thought that was high!), the current wave of political unrest in the Middle East had just begun to heat up.  I had no idea how much of a good idea an April gas vacay would be.  Instead, I chose April for the following reasons:

1. Earth Day is in April, so I wanted to do something good for the environment.
2. April is a 30-day month, not a 31-day month, like May.
3. The weather is warmer in April than in, say, super-short February, which is important given that I’ll be walking more, biking more, and waiting for buses more.  (I’ll be going into all of this in my next post.)
4. Seattle is amazingly beautiful in the springtime—last year, I was training heavily for a half marathon during April and May, and I really enjoyed running around so much and seeing all the different flowers blooming.
5. In fact, I heart Seattle so much in the spring that I don’t want to miss a moment of it, so I don’t really want to leave town.  A low-gas consumption month kind of requires no trips on the airplane, right?

Spring=pretty flowering dogwoods on my street

 Of course, while April is warmer than February, it isn’t typically a warm month.  And April isn’t the driest month of the year in Seattle either.  Here’s a little chart to illustrate Seattle’s average monthly high and low temperatures and average monthly precipitation from www.usclimatedata.com:
 

Source: U.S. Climate Data

 Actually, that ~2-inch average April rainfall looks pretty sweet compared to the soggy >5-inch fall and winter months.  Still, those 2 inches of rain are behind most of my anxiety about going car-free this coming month. I'm not keen on biking in the rain.  It isn't just the inconvenience of getting soaked between home and the office; I am afraid.  I'm scared I will wipe out while riding downhill on a wet road, breaking my collarbone and totaling my bike.  For the record, other bicycle-riding worries include: getting hit by a car, going too slow for an impatient driver and getting yelled at, and getting laughed at and passed by other bicyclists while I have to walk my bike up another one of Seattle's big-arse hills.

A little hill--I can bike up this one.  Barely.

Thus, it isn't surprising that I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can avoid biking during low-gas month.  For example: I can take the bus!  However, given my desire to cut both my overall gas consumption (buses run on gas, yo.) and my spending ($2.25 non-peak/$2.50 peak bus fare with 2-hour transfer), I've decided to limit my bus usage for the month too.

"Well," thinks bike-fearing Jess, "if I can't bus all the time, I can walk!"  Sure, I can walk to the grocery store and the pharmacy and the library, but walking takes time.  On Tuesday, I decided to find out just how long it takes to walk home from my writing office.  +45 minutes.  One way.  It was a lovely day for a walk, but I can't spend 90 minutes walking to the office every day.  Maybe one way, once a week.

"Then perhaps I won't go to the office very much all month..."  Umm, speaking of wasting money...  I pay rent, I better use it.  Carpool?  Don't know anyone else in the building, everyone has their own weird hours, no.  There's just no way around it.  If I'm going to dump the car and limit the bus, I'm going to need to get on the bike.

Look, I live near an official bike route!

 So, yesterday, a gorgeous sunny day, I pulled my bike out of storage, dusted it off, and put air in the tires.  I put on my helmet, and consulted Google Maps on my smartphone for bike route advice to the office.  Then I biked it.  And yes, I got a smarmy look from one or two drivers who had to drive around my slow self, and yes, there were some painful hills, including one where I had it got steep so quick that I had to hop off and push my bike up the hill.  But I made it there and back.  And it only took 20 minutes each way. Of course, yesterday was fair weather biking.  Sooner or later, I'm going to have to face my fear of wet road conditions. 

Anyway, I just wanted to write about my pre-April planning and some of my concerns.  Also, do you have any great rainy-biking advise for me? Please, send it my way, along with any good luck wishes, prayers if you prefer....  I'll be laying out my rules for low-gas April early next week.

(Oh, yeah, I'm doing fine with no alcohol March.  As I mentioned in my last post, I'm doing a spring-cleaning week of no sweets to get my sugar consumption under control again--four days in and feeling sane still!)

Reverse psychology

In the last week, I have had THREE dreams about eating sugar.  I binged on a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookies in the first dream, and then slapped my forehead and said, "OH SHOOT!  I forgot this is no sugar month!"  The next night, I dreamed I picked up a peppermint upon leaving a restaurant, popped it in my mouth, and then slapped my head and said, "OH SHOOT!  I forgot this is no sugar month!"  I don't remember what sweet confection I ate in my dream the next night, but I'm reasonably certain that Dream Jess slapped her forehead and said, "OH SHOOT! I forgot this is no sugar month!"

Luckily, I haven't eaten anywhere with peppermints at the door.  And I haven't been tempted with fresh baked cookies--if you want to see me slap my forehead, though, all you have to do is show up at my door with a plate of them.  I confess, I am craving the sweets right now.  I experienced a pang of longing, like an arrow in my heart, while walking past a package of Duncan Hines cookie mix at Bartells tonight.  And I never do those box mixes--those would never call my name seductively if I were currently on the white stuff.

So I decided to try to beat the cravings with a page from Psych 101.  Or maybe straight from an episode of "The Simpsons" or just about any other TV comedy:  Reverse Psychology.  The TV Guide blurb would read, "In this episode, our over-sugar-consuming heroine tries to convince herself that she doesn't want cake by looking at images of disastrous and offensive cakes."  

There's only one place to turn for that, my friends: Cakewrecks.com.  Here are some of my UN-appetizing finds.  Enjoy! (Mwahahahahaha!)

Exhibit A.

 

 

What is this made of, tuna?  BTW, those are naked babies on there.  DON"T eat babies!

Exhibit B.

I first read the name as "SPERM," not SEAN.  In case you weren't already horrified.

Exhibit C.

There's only one thing more terrifying than Alf, and that is a cake of Alf.

Lastly, Exhibit D.

It just isn't good manners to eat an extinct species OR the son of God.

Has the reverse psychology worked on you?  Or are you now calling up your nearest bakery to order a cake with Moses kissing a unicorn on top?  I wonder what kind of dreams these cakes will inspire tonight...