The Hustle of Sistah Ant

Feels good.

Tomorrow I smile. 

Last August, I set aside $25 from the interest earned by my Emergency Fund so that I could start a home down payment fund in its own account.  The growth of this new account was slow going, but I figured that if I was disciplined, just maybe I would be able to put together about ten thousand dollars by October 2008.  I decided to be ambitious.  I tacked another three thousand onto that goal, because I didn’t want to set the bar too low.  Besides, after looking at the market, I figured that ten thousand wouldn’t be enough.  I set up automatic deposits through payroll and looked forward to paying off credit card debt so that I could save more aggressively.  Then I was laid off.  Then I got a job.  Long story short, blah blah blah, tomorrow I meet my thirteen thousand dollar savings goal.  I will smile.

After tomorrow, I will fuss. 

I will knit my brow and purse my lips as I make another estimate of how much money I’ll need for the house.  As I’ve already discussed before, things have changed since I made my initial estimate.  I already know I want to increase my emergency fund by about four thousand dollars.  But I think, based on more intense scrutiny of home prices, local taxes and other various fees, that it would be an excellent idea to increase the amount of the down payment/closing costs fund.  I am willing to use some of the emergency fund to help with the house, within reason and depending on the circumstances, but using the overwhelming majority of the emergency fund is completely out of consideration.  I must save more.  Thousands more.  It is not fun to rain on your own parade, but that is the responsible thing to do.  However, I am not going to ruin tomorrow.  It is my day to celebrate meeting a lofty goal early.

I can fuss later.

I was talking with my other best friend over the weekend, and she wanted to know how much we were putting down on the house.  Now I love this girl dearly, but she is not one of the folks who can keep private information private, and she tells her entire family and many of her friends whatever you tell her.  I know this because I know too much about her family and friends. LOL!  I’m not sure I want everyone who’s known me since my preteen years to talk and debate about how much our house cost or how we went about purchasing it.  It’s none of their business, and it’s bound to end in someone saying something stupid. 

In response to her question, I told her, "About 10% at the closing table."  It was my attempt to answer her question while subtly expressing that the matter is too private for me to give her those types of details.

She didn’t get the hint.  (Either that, or she didn’t heed the hint.)

She pressed further.  "Well how much are the houses you’re looking at.?  Here, I was faced with a choice.  I could either tell her what she wanted to know, or I could find a way to express to her that something in my life is none of her business for the first time ever in 16 years, which is something neither of us in our open-book relationship has ever done before.

I gave her a range of home prices.  

I was promptly rewarded for choosing the wrong option with this question, asked in entirely the wrong tone:  "What kind of house can you get for that amount?"

Thinking as quickly as I wish I had before I gave her the numbers, I decided to take the high road instead of giving her what for.  (I’d always wanted to use "giving what for" in context!  I am such a geek…)  I told her I could actually get a three bedroom home in a safe area of my city for that amount.  She let it go, but I didn’t.

There was the pep talk I had to give myself on not worrying about what other people, including all her friends and family will think, not if, but when this information makes the rounds.   There was the need to chastise myself for punking out and disclosing information that I wasn’t comfortable disclosing, even if it was my best friend.  There was also a lesson to be learned from all this: I need to beware talking about the house, despite my enthusiasm, until I resolve how I’m going to shut down questions about my actual numbers.  I forgive her for her nosiness and her last question - in the past, we’ve always been able to be that frank.  But I see that now as we forge farther into adulthood that the dynamic of our relationship may need to change.

As a matter of fact, I’ve got a new category all about this topic, "Money and Relationships."  People need to talk about the occasional taboos and faux pas and boundaries associated with how money affects us.  So why not me?

The last time Mister Ant and I went to the grocery store, it was June.

June.

We ran out of the stuff we usually depend on about two weeks ago.  In the meantime, we haven’t been able to brown-bag for lunch.  We’ve been improvising for beverages and snacks for two weeks.  We’ve been eating stuff like ramen, hot dogs, pop tarts… Oh, it’s been awful.  And I have no idea how much the convenience store runs and lunch runs have cost us.  But we haven’t gone because we’ve been running around doing stuff, and because we have to go TOGETHER.  (Don’t ask me, ask Mister Ant.)

So of course, when we went yesterday, we had to buy more than we usually do, because we tend to go bi-weekly. 

About $80 more.  Of course, about $20 of that was for non-grocery contact lens solution, but still.  I had sticker shock at the register.  We need to shop more often.

I’ve been dealing with a computer virus since Thursday.  Mister Ant knows some stuff about computers so he is working on the problem for me.  I miss using my laptop, though.  It is Sistah Ant Command Central.  I kept meaning to put some more protection software on it.  I kept meaning to get some backup for my files.  Funny thing about stuff like that: they don’t work if you put them off.  My next major research project and expenditure will be investing in the very things I wish I’d had before my computer got sick. 

Have a  great weekend!  The road trip I had planned was cancelled both due to lack of interest from friends and the heat wave.  Fuhgittabout it.  I will stay local and airconditioned - I might even go to the mall and do a little shopping.

I really like being able to take care of the lion’s share of my bills with one week’s pay.  I’m really going to miss it when I get a permanent job, at which point I’m all but certain to make less money than I’m making as a contractor, partially because I’ll be getting real benefits.  Even though I haven’t elevated my standard of living significantly, I have elevated my savings expectations.  So I won’t feel the pain of making less money when I’m paying bills or shopping at the grocery store.  Instead, I’m going to feel it when I’m making smaller deposits to my ING account.  I’m not looking forward to it.

It’s got me thinking about Moneymonk constantly saying that if you’re not happy with your financial situation, you need to figure out a way to make more money.  

Honestly, I am not interested in working a second job or starting a small business.  I want the time that I’m not spending in an office to be all mine.  Not only that, but I have never really had a viable business idea in mind.  Just today, I was thinking that if someone gave me $50,000 tomorrow with the stipulation that I start a business, I have no idea what I would do.  I’m going to have to make career choices that give me what I want, like how Single Ma has been doing.  Multiple income streams are great, but ultimately, I’m going to have to chart another course.

My new thing is trying to eat smart for better health.  I’ve always been happy with my body, but lately… notsomuch.  I’m out of shape - too little muscle tone and strength, not enough energy and flexibility.  Also, relatives of mine have chronic health problems that I want to avoid, like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes.  For myself, for Mister Ant, and for the family we want to have, I’m trying to eat more fruits and veggies, drink more water, eat less grease and heavy starches, and refrain from heavy eating too late at night.  This is hard.  Most particularly at lunch.  Since Mister Ant and I haven’t been to the store in what seems like forever (actually, now that I think about it, it has to have been at least two weeks by now), I’ve been eating lunch out instead of eating those frozen meals.  I guess that’s good for me, because those frozen meals have lots of sodium.  But it’s not so great for my wallet, because I can get those meals for $1.00 a piece when they’re on sale, and they often are.

What have I been eating?  Well, let’s see.  Turkey sandwiches with lettuce and tomato on wheat.  Fruit salads.  Mango smoothies.  Dried cranberries.  Fruit cups.  Chicken Caesar salad.  Tacos with lettuce and tomatoes.  And the occasional breakfast croissant with egg, sausage, and cheese.  Some of these things are better than others.  The lunchmeat in the sandwiches has sodium in it.  The fruit cups have added sugar.  The Caesar dressing has fat in it (I use the dressing sparingly).  The taco meat has some grease in it.  And do I really need cheese on the croissant?  But all told, I don’t think I’m doing too badly.  But man, all this eating out is hurting my allowance.  I actually like to get through the week with most of my allowance unspent.  But this week, food ate up quite a bit more than it usually does, and I’m not happy about that.

How do you guys eat healthy for less?  (That is, if you’re trying to eat healthy.)

Update: Just to give some more perspective, I’ve been eating healthier and healthier as times pass, but I haven’t made it a PRIORITY.  That’s what I’m trying to do now.

The more I look at houses and mortgage calculators, the more I realize that the amount I had in mind for a down payment and closing costs and emergency fund is too low, if I want to have the kind of security I want to have going into the mortage.  I could press forward with what I have, but I would feel better if I had more money to work with.  I’d rather overestimate than underestimate.

I am talking myself out of being disappointed.  

Actually this is cause for joy.  It’s better to know this now than later.  

On another note, I’m looking forward to further career development.   I’m working on a volunteer project that will: 1) help someone in need, 2) give me valuable experience, 3) help me network with other like minded colleagues.  I’m still waiting to hear back on the interview I had, but I can expect to wait a little longer before hearing back.  I’m consistently looking at the market, but it’s tight right now - all the more reason for me to believe that this job I’m waiting to hear from has my name written on it.  Often, the good things come with a little patience.

All I can think about lately is the house.  I talked about it so much over the weekend that Mister Ant had to ask me to chill out.  And he’s a very tolerant and patient man.  (He has to be, to be with me.) 

I have a set of bookmarked tabs set up in my internet browser.  The first is at one of those sites where you can browse houses for sale.  Another is a zip code map of my area, so that I can browse for homes by zip code.  Another tab is the site for the local transportation authority, so that I can see whether or not a house I’m looking at is close to public transportation - which is an important dealbreaker for me.  Yet another tab links to a crime statistics site, so that I can see where the homicides for the last two years have been in relation to the homes I’m browsing.  One more tab (and I know this may be controversial) shows the racial makeup of the areas in the city.  I want to live in as diverse a neighborhood as I can afford.

I’ve been looking at these different sites, getting a feel for the city.  I’ve also been getting lost on purpose in the city - it’s a great way to learn!  It’s still too early to call a realtor, but I am looking more seriously for first-time homeowner counseling.  I’m so excited!

The last time I had a big money goal, it was to pay off the last of my old credit card debt.  I worked on it for many months.  Sacrificed for it, planned for it… scribbled on the backs of countless envelopes…  I came so very, very close.  I had even started to save a little bit of money from each paycheck towards My Own Home.  And then I was laid off from my job. 

I didn’t panic, even though part of me wanted to do exactly that.  Instead, I took my entire severance pay and put it into the My Own Home account, but I didn’t do it with a lot of enthusiasm.  I figured that since I wasn’t employed, there wasn’t any point in getting too attached to the money, because financial need might make me have to raid the account.  In case you were wondering, that’s why I put the word "tentative" next to this blog’s My Own Home progress bar.

Here I am, seven months later, making more money as a temporary employee than I’ve ever made before, and saving at a faster rate than I ever anticipated before I was laid off.  I am blessed.  Today, I am 94% of the way towards my down payment goal, and given my prospects at work, I can reasonably anticipate that I will meet my goal by the end of this month, enabling me to move on to beefing up my Emergency Fund.  I am in awe - I’m on the cusp!

But I did have these fleeting thoughts:  What if my project ends earlier than I think it will?   What if I have to dip into my savings?  Last time I got soooo close without actually finishing - what if it happens again?  Maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high, too fast.

Guess what?  I can’t afford to do this to myself.  I have to stay positive and not get pushed around by fear.  When I was laid off, I wasn’t able to pay off the last of that debt for another two months, but that wait didn’t kill me!  When it was all said and done, I did eventually reach my goal.  If for some reason I’m not able to save any more for a while, I’m still 94% of the way there.  And even if I wind up having to dip into the account, it can be replenished when (not if) I’m able.  What’s to fear?  Only a negative attitude.

I’m just going to continue to push and push enthusiastically until that progress bar gets all the way over to 100%!  That’s where my head is at.  And that’s where I’m going to keep it.