For those wanting my response to the current discussion going on, on the Ecumenicon E-List, click here.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to additional ways to save money and work on my Personal Finance Management (PFM) lately. One of the topics that keeps rolling around in my skull is the topic of Christmas/Yule/etc.

2007 was the first year I created a Christmas Fund. It was a lifesaver when the holiday season rolled around and I needed to think about the gifts I was going to get. I had $660 to do with as I pleased, $200 of which I gave to my father to buy gifts with since he’s on disability and has no extra money. We didn’t buy each other tons of gifts, and most of the gifts we did buy were practical (rubber no-slip step covers for outside for my dad, new crockpot that we needed etc).

In my mind I know that spending $600 just for a holiday every year is stupid. It really is. But for some reason I still struggle with the thought of disregarding the gift giving and just celebrate the actual holiday. Maybe I don’t want my dad to feel poor, or maybe I enjoy the way his face lights up when I give him something he loves. Personal I could care less if I receive gifts, I just want to spend time with people I care about.

So in theory my financial mindset wants to drop the gift giving each year and save that money, but my sentimental mindset is fighting back hard.

We could just limit the amount of money and gifts to a smaller amount. I could talk openly with my dad about it and see what he thinks.

It really doesn’t make any sense to me why people (including myself) spend all of this money and put ourselves through so much struggle for something so completely unnecessary.

Will I be able to break the bonds with the holiday season? We shall see.

I just got finished making my famous devilled eggs. My dad is cooking up chicken and homefries for Easter dinner. I have some red cabbage and onion skins to dye some eggs later, and may use cantip leaves as decoration since I don’t have much available in the way of botanicals.

Yesterday the Grove celebrated it’s Ostara High Rite, and boy was it awesome. Several of us have been gathering before ritual to do small projects and such, and for this High Rite we decided to gather pinecones, plaster them in homemade peanut butter, and roll them in bird seed for the Nature Spirits. We hung about 30 of them all around the sanctuary as an offering.

This ritual was completely dedicated to the Earth Mother, kinda like a surprise birthday party for the Earth Mother. Everything in the ritual was organic and/or sustainable, from the offerings to the tools we used. Nothing plastic. Even the string we used to hang up the pinecones was made of cotton.

Most of the offerings were various forms of grass seed since the sanctuary is becoming fairly muddy and pitiful as far as grass is concerned. I happened to invite the Nature Spirits for this particular ritual.

I’m not sure what the omen was, as it was kind of confusing. I guess I’ll wait for the Seer’s Guild to interpret it.

I conducted a small auction of goods at the Grove during revels after the High Rite. I donated $86 worth of goods, which those particular goods raised over $109 (more than half of the total raised) for the Grove. Our grand total raised was $200.25, not bad for a small auction that wasn’t really pushed all that much.

One of my goals as Senior Druid has been to alternate every High Rite between a Fundraiser and a Charity. Our Imbolc High Rite was for the Lakota Blanket Drive (which I will get a total count of blankets next weekend), and Ostara was an auction Fundraiser. For Beltane we may do a book charity drive. So far keeping up with this project has been fairly easy

Today is going to be finishing up small projects around the house and relax spending time with my dad for his Easter.

What I can remember of this dream started out on an expedition with several people, including my co-worker Peter. We were in some form of land boat out in a large field when we happened upon a solitary young mule deer. For some reason I dared Peter to catch it, so he ran after it and tackled it. Shortly after another larger horned mule deer came charging and tackled them both. Several of us ran after Peter to pull him out of the entanglement, but a host of other vermin such as lions and tigers started attacking us and the land boat. I remember one gentleman having his head speared by the jaws of a falling lion.

Several people were killed, Peter and I were not among them as I was able to pull him to a thicket to wait out the attack. We were able to gather up the survivors and get out of there.

Fast forward to the trip home, I drive my Aunt Patty home (I’m unsure if she was with us in the expedition but I assume so), but there are what is called a “Rocky Mountains Wolf” all over the neighborhood. These are actually just wild Dobermans…..and we don’t live near the Rocky’s, we live near the Appalacians, but anyway. In order to allow her to walk to her house, I have to chase off these wild Rocky Mtn Wolves, and I figured if I shot into the air it would do the trick. But instead it made them more volatile and they tried attacking the car.

Fortunately she was able to make it into the house.

Fast forward to trying to get home myself. I followed some directions given by my mother which landed me in Chicago, and then in Pennsylvania, and was an extremely out of the way route. I called my Aunt for better directions and found a highway I knew could take me home.

I stopped off at this small diner, and there sat my co-worker Peter, Erin, and their bulldog Emmy. I sat down at their table for a few and asked if my directions were correct to get back to Frederick, and they offered me a bite to eat. I make myself a bowl of cereal and begin eating it, when Emmy shakes her head and flings snot in my cereal.

And then I woke up.

I’ve decided to put up some of my jewelry for sale on Etsy to help collect money for my fathers debt. This isn’t even a chunk of what I have available to put up, but not all of my pictures turned out so I have to retake them when the sun comes back up.

Enjoy.

I did some snooping in my dads filing cabinet since he has a hard time discussing financial things with me, and I found a recent statement of the loan he’s had for I don’t know how many years.

Loan Details:
Balance: $5503.73
IR: 24% (wtf?)
Monthly Payment: $177.17 ($114.90 of which goes straight to interest, while only $62.27 goes to the actual loan per month)

This is a hefty bill that’s obviously not going anywhere, and though the sweetheart and I were planning on saving $1300 for fathers day to tackle one of his bills with, this one concerns me and I’d like to tackle it ASAP.

I have a credit card at 14.5% interest rate with a limit of $5500, which I’m sure I could easily increase. It’s been a year since I requested my interest rates to be reduced, so I intend to do so again and maybe knock it down another percent or two.

I could put this balance on my credit card and have my father pay me the $177/month, while I add an additional amount each month, and work towards paying it off this year. I could put my “economic stimulus” payment towards it, but wanted to put it towards my car, which is also important to me to pay off ASAP (I already put $150 EXTRA per month towards this balance).

I could also put this balance on my credit card, put the $1300 the sweetheart and I have saved up together towards it, and then add his hospital bill onto the card as well so they are both taken care of as far as he’s concerned. Still it’s a hefty bill, and having debt stresses me out, which is why I’m so adamant about not having any

Or I could attempt to get his loan refinanced for him, possibly through Capital One. But whether this would be approved is questionable.

I have time to think about this decision, however. I may write some of the financial blogs that I read regularly for advice.

Incidentally, his hospital bill is about $1500.

I read an article in the paper today that outlines the payment schedule for the upcoming “Economic Stimulus”. They are basing the payment schedule in the last two numbers of your Social Security Number. For households filing join returns, the first SSN on file will be used. It says that although Direct Deposit payments will be completed by May 16th, people with a SSN ending in 88-99 won’t have their checks mailed until July 11.

Everyone who earned at least $3,000 in 2007 and files a tax return is eligible for the payment. Lower income workers, veterans and other citizens with SS benefits who don’t usually file tax returns, will need to file a return to be eligible.

Rumors about the stimulus payment effecting future returns are false, and it won’t reduce next year’s return and you won’t have to pay it back. Payments will range from $300-$600 for people filing as single with no dependents, and $600-$1,200 for people filing join tax returns. Households will receive an extra $300 per child.

Direct Deposit Payment Schedule
SSN Ending in - To be received by
00-20 May 2nd
21-75 May 9th
76-99 May 16th

Paper Check Payment Schedule
SSN Ending in - To be received by
00-09 May 16th
10-18 May 23rd
19-25 May 30th
26-38 June 6th
38-51 June 13th
52-63 June 20th
64-75 June 27th
76-87 July 4th
88-99 July 11th

So I should be getting my payment by May 9th directly deposited in my account. (Why people go for paper checks for anything anymore these days is beyond me. When I worked at Terminix my co-worker used to do it because she said she didn’t trust it to be deposited correctly. Well…that’s why you keep track of these things. Direct Deposit is more convenient, more eco-conscious because you’re using less paper, and obviously you’d get your money faster in all sorts of ways).

So what should people do with their “Economic Stimulus” payment?

I tell you what you shouldn’t do. Spend it. At least not on things you don’t need. I saw the same pattern with tax returns. People received a hefty payment of their hard earned money, and spent it all on gadgets and absolute crap. Why do this to yourself? Not only are you filling your home and life with things you just don’t need, but you’re spending money that should be used with some amount of intelligence. Put it towards your debts, put it into savings so you have an emergency savings, invest it into your retirement. But for the love of the gods of personal finance, don’t fuck around with it like you are in a position to spend carelessly. Trust me, you aren’t.

My two choices for using this money to my best benefit are either 1. To put towards my car payment to help pay it off even quicker, or 2. Just tuck it away into emergency savings since I want to reach my $5k goal this year.

I could very easily spend this on a bunch of books off my wishlist, go out shopping for new clothes that I don’t need, go buy an ipod that I don’t need, or some such nonsense. But I don’t have those things now and I’m getting along just fine.

Instead of promoting consumerism by stimulating the economy, I’m allow myself to be more free by ridding of debt, or keeping a cushion available to make sure things are taken care of. I don’t know about you, but I’m not confident that things are perfect enough for me not to protect myself.