I’m still doing irregular Genealogy research, and though I have back to the 1500’s on my mothers side, I’m still not as far as I’d like on my fathers side. I know nothing of his father, though an Aunt swears she has some information that I’m frothing at the mouth to get. And his mothers side I’ve got to his great grandparents that came over from Germany in 1882, along with the ship name, departure/arrival date, etc.

I had a sliver of hope when I found my great great grandfathers tombstone that I would be able to find his hometown in Germany on his death certificate. But do they list his hometown? Of course not. They just list “Germany.”

So the only way to get any further back is to actually do research -in- Germany. Meet my brick wall.

So I am reading this book called Your Money or Your Life which was recommended by several popular financial bloggers. It has a lot of common sense information (though it wasn’t always common sense to me, so I’m sure it’s not for everyone), but at about half-way through so far, I came to a weird realization.

Throughout this book the author talks repeatedly about keeping track of expenses. He emphasizes keeping track of every penny that goes in and out of your life (which I’ve been doing since Jan 2005), and shows example of categorization so you can get a better picture of your financial “world”. But a lot of the examples he talks about are things like tanning salon or meals out each week.

I’m reading through all of this and I’m thinking to myself “But hell, none of this applies to me so how am I supposed to do anything here?”

I’ve realized that I’ve pretty much “trimmed the fat” on my expenses. Which is actually a GREAT feeling. I don’t have the normal expenses that the people this book is geared towards do. I spend money on 1. Savings/Retirement 2. Bills and 3. Occasional enjoyment. I rarely ever go out to eat (I went out Friday night for some Indian food with a co-worker, but we used the gift cards our bosses gave us for Christmas), I don’t go shopping just to go shopping, I don’t do things that cost a lot of money, and I always take care of my bills and future first.

I decided to put some of this into perspective.

Comparison of Expenses from 2005 to 2008:

Haircare
For years and years I’ve dyed my hair blonde. I was born blonde, I had dirty blonde hair as I got older, but eventually I just started dying the shit. And let me tell you, brown to blonde? It’s an expensive fucking process.
January 23, 2005 - $82.00
May 17th, 2005 - $116.92
August 29th, 2005 $93.00 (last time I ever dyed my hair).

The hair stylist recommended I get my roots done every 3 months. I didn’t always make it because it’s expensive (Could you imagine $100 every three months just for hair?)

If we average it out, $100 every three months comes to $400/year in just hair dye.

I let my natural color grow out for almost 2 years and then decided to switch to all natural henna at $30 a bundle which lasts me at least 6 months, maybe more.

If we average -that- out, we’re talking less than $60/year, maybe closer to $40/year. That’s 90% I saved financially. But lets not forget how much healthier my hair is now that I am no longer bleaching, drying, or using chemicals on it.

Food Service
From February 2005 to June 2007, I had 59 transacations with the Schwan’s Specialty Food Delivery that totaled $2,978.39. (This is where the beauty of Microsoft Money comes in people, instant gratificational totals)

Total from June 2007 till now? $0 fuckin dollars. That’s 100% savings right there.

I want to do more comparisons of savings, but some of my categories need re-adjusting as far as food/restaurants. But I’m proud of the evolution I’ve made. I still want to compare all of my services to make sure I’m getting the best service for the cheapest price (like refinance my car loan, re-evaluate my insurance, etc), but I think I’m on the right track.

Westboro Baptist plans to picket Heath Ledger’s funeral (.pdf).

I can’t imagine the amount of hatred that will be directed at them for that. Why would you ever purposefully put yourself as the center of a majority of America’s (or the world’s) hatred?

I think I was talking about this the other day with someone, about whether these people really believe what they are preaching or whether or not they are just doing it for the publicity. Even so it’s a pretty retarded way to get publicity. To have so many people wish you were dead? I’ll pass thanks.

On the other hand, I find myself not as disturbed by them as most people. Not because I don’t think what they are doing is wrong, I certainly think they are idiots. Maybe it’s because I’m obviously not into the God/Heaven/Hell thing. It’s insulting to be slandered at a funeral of a loved one, and that’s the main thing I have issue with. But 1. I support gay rights, so being called a “fag” isn’t really an insult to me. 2. I don’t believe in the concepts of heaven/hell/god/satan, and 3. It’s possible I’d feel different if it was the funeral of a loved one.

I don’t know, I haven’t really sorted my thoughts out about these people yet.

When I was little, we used to have a Capacitance Electronic Disc player or “Video Disk”. This was before VHS came out, naturally. I used to remember watching The Last Unicorn on it.

When I was married, for some reason my ex-husband thought it would be a good idea to buy one of these players and some disks at a yard/garage sale.

Thus I am now stuck with the clunker and a big pile of disks. Fortunately I stumbled onto that site above which shows there’s at least an oldschool fanbase for the damned things. Kinda like old 1970’s hackers and computer programmers you’d imagine from War Games.

Needless to say I think I’m ready to get rid of it. It works, and it’s a charming idea to keep and mess with an ancient piece of technology. But there’s no real desire for me to watch it regularly.

1. Bought a Car. This might be weird to put in a list of best financial moves, but considering my previous work vehicle was a 1978 Ford Bronco with a 351M, this was certainly one of the better decisions I made. I went from spending $80+/week on gas plus breaking down every month or two, to spending $37/week on gas with no regular car maintenance beyond the usual. Plus the mustang is a v6 and gets about…21 miles to the gallon, whereas my bronco was getting about 13/15 mpg.

It was a scary deal, buying my first car. Scary to the point where I thought I’d have put my father and I in financial turmoil and wanted to sell it again the next day. But in the end it was an easy and worthwhile investment.

1.A Bought a USED car. I spent $14k on a 2004 mustang in 2006, and it still had the original warranty on it. I could have spent $19k on a stock brand new mustang, but I saved myself at least $5,000.

2. Evaluated my bills. When I started using Microsoft Money in January of 2005 as a New Years Resolution, it really opened my eyes about my finances. I saw how much I was spending every quarter on certain bills, what my income versus expenses was, how much I was accumulating in debt vs savings.

I took a look at a food service we used to get called Schwans, where I was spending $60-$100/month. I saw the totals over the last year had been upwards of $3,000 being wasted on this service. But it was hard to cancel it because the delivery guy was a good friend of ours.

So my first step was to cancel the next delivery, and continue canceling deliveries (not the service) until I was able to see first hand that we didn’t need the service, and how much money I was saving by not getting it. I was then capable of canceling the service completely and have no regrets or desires to go back.

In addition to this, I was able to take a look at how I could lessen my monthly expenditures. Adjusting cell-phone plans, changing long distance services, adjusting car insurance coverage, setting a grocery budget of $200/month for my father and myself. All of these things might have been only about $30/month savings each, but they add up to hundreds of dollars worth of savings a month.

Because of that, I was able to put the money to use elsewhere (see below).

2.b Started keeping track of my finances. I mentioned above that I started using MS Money to keep track of my finances. It really is easy to spend 15 minutes a week to go over the expenditures and receipts for that week. I don’t spend much as it is so it really only takes 15 minutes a week.

But there are a lot of other programs out there you can use. Quicken being a great alternative. There are even free online services you can use, the most popular right now being Mint.com. You have to know what is coming and going in order to fix your finances. If you just check your account and see what’s in there to know whether you can spend money, that’s no way to live. I know, I used to do that.

3. Started my Retirement. This was a fairly intimidating one, simply because I knew (and still know) so little about it. But I read many times over that it’s never too early to start saving for retirement. My first step consisted of absorbing as much information from real people (not financial advisor’s) about retirement. I learned about 401k’s and Roth IRA’s and Emergency Savings. I knew I couldn’t put a big sum in at once, so I found that T.Rowe Price let you set up a Roth IRA without a deposit so long as you set up a direct deposit of at least $50/month. I started putting $120/month into my Roth IRA and $140/month into my 401k. Now I have a fairly decent amount in both, and can re-evaluate my bills to see if I can afford more at any time.

The biggest thing was to get started, even if it’s just a small amount. The compound interest that builds over time does more for you than depositing large amounts once you get older. And 401k’s are pre-tax, meaning my paycheck hardly changed at all.

4. Acknowledged that I can make some changes and still be comfortable and happy. I didn’t really give up anything I didn’t want to, and it really wasn’t hard to make the adjustments I did. People seem to think that they are making some great sacrifice in order to fix their finances, and you’re really not. If you absolutely MUST go out every night to a restaurant , or order take-out, purchase needless things like jewelry or books, and hate the lack of money you have because of it, then you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself. There are just more important things in life.

5. Stopped spending needlessly. It’s rare that I go to a restaurant now or spend money on myself. I’ve been working on lessening the desire for material possessions and getting rid of things I don’t need because material things just don’t make me happy. Spending time with my father and my friends, that’s what makes me happy. Providing for my father, making sure he knows he’s going to be taken care of even with his lack of retirement, that is what makes everything worth while.

6. Allowed myself a treat once in a while. Just because you are watching what you spend, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat yourself once in a while. You deserve a reward when you’ve done well with your finances. It becomes more meaningful when it’s not an everyday occurance.

7. Kept track of my credit. I will admit, at first I did fall for the freecreditreport.com scam, which wasn’t actually free. But after doing some significant research, I realized that going to annualcreditreport.com is the only actually free. You can only check it once a year (all you need really) but it’s good to see your credit go up as you start making smart financial decisions. Plus it will help you keep track of any identify theft as well as bogus old claims on your credit.

8. Started paying myself first. Signing up for ING was one of the better decisions I made. After figuring out how much I wanted to put away into my 401k, Roth IRA, and my emergency savings, I made sure I paid those first, then my monthly bills, and THEN I figured out what money I had left over for general expenditures and things for myself. Usually it’s not a large amount right now, but the fact that I don’t need to go out to restaurants or buy needless unimportant things for myself, it’s really not that hard.

9. Paid attention to budgets. I don’t like to budget, and for the most part I don’t. But one thing I do budget on is making sure we don’t spend much more than $200/month on groceries. We are able to be comfortable for that little amount of money and it actually buys quite a bit of good foods for crockpots and fresh ingredients rather than processed meals.

10.Started a Christmas Fund. Every year at Christmas I’d always be in a panic trying to figure out how I’m going to afford to get through the holiday presents and meals. This past year (2007) was the first year I saved up a Christmas Fund that took care of all my holiday expenses without me having to sacrifice anything. I put a set amount away in an additional ING savings account every month and it built up gradually without hurting my finances or having to sacrifice or stress over anything.

11. Opened up an ING account. This was the decision that had the biggest financial impact by far. No overdraft fees, instead they give you a small line of credit in case you go over your account, and it has a small interest rate. Usually it runs me about 40 CENTS a month rather than $35/per overdraft charge like I had before. Opening up a high-interest savings account gives me the benefit of 4.3% interest rate, no overdraft charges, cash back options for my purchases, FREE billpay and FREE online checks, and the ability to open an account and manage as many accounts as I want all online. I thought it would be difficult because ING doesn’t supply paper checks, but it hasn’t been a hassle for me at all due to my lifestyle.

btw, if you want an ING referral to get a $25 bonus for signing up, let me know (minimum must be $250)

12. Started chipping away at my fathers debt. I’m still in the process of working on this, but paying off my fathers debts is important to me, simply because it means I don’t have to lend him as much money, and he has a clear conscience about having no debt to worry about at his age. I think next year I may actually have all of his debt paid off, and can just focus on honing his financial habits and lowering his monthly bills. ($500/month for health insurance??)

We just got a message from the estate lawyer, and they have decided to sell the property. He’s supposed to sit down with the appraiser tomorrow, but he wanted to give us a courtesy call and let us know early that we have the option to buy.

Naturally the first thing I can do is freak out and let the 10,000 “what if’s” run through my head. And then once that’s over the calm settles in and I can look at the situation logically.

We already have someone who wants to buy the property so my father and I can stay and/or buy from them. So that’s the first phone call to make tomorrow. Then we need to find out how much they are selling it for. They said the property taxes are extremely high, and I know that mortgages are extremely low, so it may very well be in our favor. Still, it’s Maryland, and Maryland isn’t cheap. I can only hope that everything works out okay.

My dad and I will land on our feet, as we always do. This could very well be a blessing in disguise, as most things seem to be. I could be buying my first property as my first investment which I expect to have a high return in the end. And it’s almost a good time to do so.

I was doing some figures related to my financial situation earlier, and how close I am to paying off the mustang. I have about $9k left on it, and I intend to pay extra per/month from now on, thanks to some earlier advice left in my comments. When taxes come in March, I intend to put about a grand into my savings and the rest into the car, which should theoretically bring it down to $8k. I’ll probably pay off $5k on it this year, and next tax season I’ll probably put another $2k down on it from my taxes, bringing it down to $1k left by February/March 2009. And obviously I’ll just pluck that right out of my emergency savings, giving me a 0 balance. That’s paying off the mustang 2 years early from my 5 year loan.

Then the $330/month that I pay for my car will be invested in savings and retirement. Just because I don’t have a car payment anymore doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and splurge or change anything about the frugal habits I have now. It doesn’t give me an excuse to be irresponsible, it just takes some of the stress off. That money will be put away and I will still look for ways to save money every month by not going out to restaurants, lowering my monthly bill costs, and just using plain common sense.