The Hustle of Sistah Ant

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.

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.

Last night I sat down with my receipts and added up my trip costs, balanced my checkbook, and made a plan for today’s paycheck.  Everything is doing just fine!  I have a tendency to get a little nervous when I haven’t crunched my numbers in a few too many days, so I was nervous about how my balance would come out when I finally sat down at the table with the receipts.

I did spend $50 dollars more than I had planned on spending on the trip - it was the second tour on my New Orleans trip that put me over the edge.  But, seeing as how I left myself a buffer in my general spending account, that extra $50 didn’t put me in the poorhouse.  In fact, so far as paying bills and saving for the house are concerned, I’m not even breaking my stride.  But when I was on the trip, away from home, not checking my bank balances on the internet, and not sitting still long enough to go through my receipts, I was dependent on a loose tally I was keeping in my head.  I thought I was doing worse than I actually was, and that kept me just scared enough to keep from spending too much more money when I thought I was running low.  There’s still some cash in my trip spending account.

I am not advocating this approach to personal finance.  I think that it’s better when someone knows what their balances actually are so that they can make informed spending/cash flow decisions.  Mind games are not the way to plan.  But I recognize that there are certain circumstances (like when someone is traveling) that make it less likely that someone will keep up with every penny, even though they may find themselves in decision-making positions.  I think it’s better, when your information is limited, to err on the side of caution instead of throwing caution to the wind and spending too much.

Anyway, I’m back on the grind.  I’ve still got a house to save for.  I still haven’t invested my Sharebuilder money. And, I need to figure out what purpose I want to bestow on the balance left in my New Orleans spending account.  Perhaps it should be the seed money for Christmas?  It’s about that time to start saving if I don’t want to go into debt around the time of the holidays…  I’ll keep thinking about it.

This is a long post telling about my first vacation in detail.  I tried to include the finances of the trip as often as I could, but to be honest, I’m still unpacking - I haven’t even culled through my receipts yet.

Friday

My friends and I spent Friday in transit, pretty much.  I caught a cab to the train station in order to catch a train to the airport to catch a flight to another airport to catch a flight to the airport in New Orleans to get a prepaid shuttle to the hotel.  We had just enough time to check in, take the bags upstairs, freshen up, and walk over to the concert at the Superdome, which was great!  The travel arrangements worked well, except for one snag.  By the time we got there, late in the afternoon, all of the double-bed rooms were taken and we had to settle for a one bed room with a fold out couch.  One of my more experienced travel companions asked about breakfast service - a subtle but effective hint - and we were compped breakfast for the following morning.  We ate lunch in the airport and had concession food at the concert for dinner (we hadn’t really planned ahead on food for Friday.  The view from the hotel was outstanding.  The entertainment was more than I expected it to be.  We saw J Holiday, Rhianna, Chris Brown, and Kanye West from the floor seats, and it was an energetic and fun show.  I wasn’t prepared for the size of the Superdome, and I kept looking up at the roof for the hole, but it wasn’t there.  There were plenty of places to spend money - vendors selling everything from t-shirts to Greek paraphernalia to sunglasses to daiquiris in pineapples.  I didn’t buy anything that night except some jambalaya at the concert that cost more for the bowl than the box of Zatarain’s it came from.  By the time we walked back from the concert (we weren’t being cheap on the cab, the traffic was just that bad that Poydras and Canal were all backed up) we had been awake and running full speed ahead for a long time (I had gone out partying with Mister Ant the night before).  We fell out asleep as soon as we hit the hotel room.

Saturday Before Sundown

Saturday brought sunshine that filled up the room with light and promise.  We reserved space on a plantation tour (my friend paid for it and we paid her back in cash) and then went downstairs to the hotel dining room for our free buffet breakfast of custom omelettes, grits and gravy, ham, waffles, fruit… it was decent fare and a nice place to eat, especially for free.  We stopped at the drugstore for a big back of water and other things we couldn’t get through airport security and then we headed through the French Quarter to meet up for the tour.  First, everyone was so friendly!  I felt at home the whole time I was there.  Second, the Quarter was so quaint and interesting and pretty and colorful.  I loved it immediately.  My camera batteries conked out on me so I bought some more and I’m glad I did because the tour was so picture worthy.  Our tour guide was a Louisiana native with a good sense of humor and a wealth of knowledge.  I learned what a bayou was, finally.  I learned about crab trapping and the need for wetlands protection, the numbing properties of a good mint julep, the differences between French slavery and American/English slavery, and so many other things.  At the plantation, I liked the weight of the humidity in the air and the stateliness of the 600 year old walking oak trees.  We learned about the architecture and how the verandas and parallel windows helped to keep the homes cool in the days before air conditioning.  Of course, we tipped the tour guides.  I got lots of pictures of the countryside.  There were still old rusted tin roofed slave cabins standing on the side of the road, and sugar cane is still being planted out there in fields as far as the eye can see.  On the way back from the tour, we walked through the tourist mall, the Riverwalk, and ate there before picking up little souvenirs and working our way back to the heart of the French Quarter by streetcar.  We wandered, taking in the sights, taking pictures, and having fun just hanging around Decatur Street near Jackson Square.  There were street performers, artists, passenger mule carts - it was so busy and the energy was so lighthearted and fun.  I took video of a little crew of teenagers that had people dancing right out front of Cafe du Monde at the French Market with their drums, tuba, and trumpets.  They were good!  My friends and I split up - two of us went to dinner and my other friend went on a voodoo tour.

Saturday Dusk Til Dawn

We ate at a nice little corner restaurant on Decatur across from the French Market, out on the veranda watching the sun go down over the city.  Before ducking into the restaurant, we watched as the police lifted a purple colored man into an ambulance - it looked like he’d been hit by a car but it turns out that they pulled him over for flicking a cigarette out of a window, they found that he was drunk, he resisted arrest and they had to taze him.  Wow.  On the veranda, I asked the neighbors at the next table over if I could take a picture of their big plate of crawfish, and as we talked we found that one of them had lived in our Philadelphia for six months after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina.  He’s now back at home, and I’m happy for him.  I can understand how having to start your life over in a new city can be discouraging, but by my second day in New Orleans, I was so in love with Louisiana, I couldn’t imagine not wanting to come back home if I was in his shoes.  After sharing a meal of crab cakes, my friend and went off to wander the Quarter, checking out the architecture - the corridors leading from the street to inner courtyards, the shutters, the tropical colors, and the intricate ironwork.  We marveled.  My friend was a little nervous about wandering after dark in a strange city, but I figured since we were together, we were safe with each other.  We wandered up to Bourbon Street, which wasn’t very crowded since it was still late in the evening, and wandered past Preservation Hall and Pat O’Brien’s on the way back to the hotel.  All three of us reunited at the hotel and headed out by taxi to Faubourg Marigny to see a mutual friend from Philadelphia, who was an artist performing at a hookah bar.  Good times had by all, we left for Bourbon Street (after finally getting a taxi that didn’t pass us to pick up white people - no I am not exaggerating, it happened twice and it was blatant and I wonder if it was because this time, we were with a man) and this time, Bourbon Street was crowded and loud and colorful.  The crowd was a little younger than I felt comfortable with, and the guys were a little too forward with the grabbing, ‘Ey Mama’s and all, so I was glad when my friends decided to come back to the hotel.  By this time, my calves were sore from all the walking and my feet were ready for a rest!  I slept like a baby.

Sunday Before Dusk

Two of us woke up early to head out to the spa - me for a massage, and my friend for a facial.  My therapist was really good at answering my questions and explaining more about massage to me.  I liked the whole experience and I am committed to making it possible for me to continue getting massages.  After paying and leaving a tip we met up with our other friend and headed over to Cafe du Monde to have beignets (French doughnuts that taste just like funnel cake) and coffee together, which I really enjoyed and I don’t usually like coffee at all!  This was by far the most affordable meal I’d had on the whole trip.  By this point I had exhausted the cash I brought with me (on transportation, tips, souvenirs, sunglasses-because-I-had-left-mine-at-home, and food) but I went to a drugstore, bought two candy bars (which came in handy later on the airplanes) and got $40 cash back.  I had reserved and paid for space on a Hurricane Katrina tour for myself and one of my friends, and when she paid me her half in cash, there was plenty for me to get through the rest of the trip.  After picking up some beignet mix for my house and for a friend, two of us left for the Hurricane Katrina tour and our friend who had gone on the voodoo tour wandered the Quarter.  The Katrina tour wasn’t exploitative of the people who live there.  Its main purpose was to explain why it is important to the residents and the country for us all to commit to rebuilding - even in the low lying areas.  We saw failing commercial areas, thinned out residential areas, and many many signs of resilience and the will of the people to renew and replenish their city.  I wanted to buy a house myself.  The tour showed us first hand how important the levee and canal system are to the well being of the city, and I got a better understanding of how it was possible for the storm surge to be that devastating.  We also stopped briefly in City Park at the Botanical Gardens for pictures.  By four o’clock, all three of us reunited and walked over to Congo Square, where it just so happened that there was an event starting as we arrived to honor the ancestors who kept our culture alive.  There were drummers there from several African countries.  I poured libations for the ancestors on the site and we enjoyed the music before leaving.  We were chased back to the Quarter by a thunderstorm that threatened but never poured.  I picked up some souvenirs (T-shirts, 5 for $20) and then we ate right up the street from Pat O’Brien’s (where my drinker friend preferred a mint julep over a hurricane - sorry Serenity).  We had a blackened fish appetizer, and then I had and thoroughly enjoyed crawfish etoufee with a side of jambalaya (finally a bowl that didn’t taste like Zatarain’s that I could have fixed myself) and I had the best pecan pie ever for dessert.  I am going back to this place the next time I come back, and I will come back!  Our waiter was a charmer - I love that Louisiana drawl!  It’s just sexy.  (Did I just say that?)

The Neverending Last Evening

Two of us went to another concert that night while the other had fun wandering the Quarter and going to the casino.  (Why do they card people before they let them walk into the casino, but let random Pretty Tony sell mixed drinks out of the trunk of his car on the side of the road, and have daiquiri drive-thrus?  That doesn’t make any sense.  Up north you can just walk into the casino and you only get carded if you look like a child.  But you can’t just get drunk anytime anywhere and you sure can’t have a daiquiri in your car, LOL!)  The concert was good - Keyshia Cole, Chris Rock, Mary J. Blige, and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly.  I really, really had a good time.  I was doing the Electric Slide in the Superdome!  By the time we got back to the hotel it was time to round up the last of our things and get ready to catch the shuttle back to the airport to wait for the plane to take us to another airport to take us to Philly.  We saw the sunrise from the airport while waiting to board our plane.  The stupid plane all but reversed my massage’s wonderful benefits and I didn’t really get any decent sleep after Sunday’s fun until I got home on Monday afternoon.

It was totally worth spending money on.  But I am not looking forward to adding it all up because I’m almost certain it’s going to be a four-digit number.  My friends and I all want to go next year, but we are going to have to figure out how to do it for less, especially if I am going to ever get around to using my passport.   But I would actually like to go when there isn’t a big festival full of out-of-towners just to see what it would be like then.  I love New Orleans, and I even have a t-shirt that says so.

This is all the motivation I need to keep doing well with my finances.  I have hundreds more pictures and all they make me want to do is go back!  My friends and I had so much fun on our trip!  I can’t wait to go back.  If I could afford it, I’d buy a house there.  Who knows?  Maybe one day I will afford it…

I was thinking about how I’m supposed to tip my massage therapist with a debit card when it dawned on me that I should find out if my bank and/or credit union have any compatible ATMs in the area of New Orleans where I’ll be staying and playing.  I went online and looked for ATMs that would be fee-friendly to me, and unfortunately I had no luck.  This is a problem.

No matter how much I want it, I can’t use my debit cards everywhere - for example, when I’m tipping my therapist.  Or the taxi driver.  Or the housekeeping at the hotel.  I mean, sometimes, you can tip someone by authorizing a larger draw off of your debit card, like when you’re out to eat.  But really, a tip is supposed to be a thoughtful gesture of gratitude for good service.  I strongly prefer putting cold hard cash into the hands of the person who performs a service for me, knowing that they get to put the money in their pocket with no further hassle, like waiting to receive my charged tip from their employer.  There’s also the issue of places that, in 2008, still don’t take plastic at all, or require a minimum purchase amount to allow you to use plastic as a method of payment, like vendors or certain small businesses.

It’s nice to know now rather than later that there are no ATMs in New Orleans that will be fee-friendly to me.  I am thinking about making other arrangements for having cash while I’m there, such as buying a candy bar at the drugstore and getting cash back.  Or carrying more cash down with me than I otherwise would have carried.  I can tackle the problem on the front end rather than on the back end.

Anyway, have a great holiday weekend!  Enjoy the fireworks!  I’ll be back, oh, ’round Tuesday or so.

There’s this little song that plays in my head on Wednesdays, the day before my direct deposit wire hits my checking account.  It has the same melody as the 12 days of Christmas: "On the last day of brokeness my true love said to me…"  That’s it. There are no more lyrics to the song.  That part just plays on a loop.  Yes, it’s annoying, but I can’t help the songs that play in my imagination.

This week, the last day of brokeness has come not a moment too soon.  I’ve got a credit card to pay off, retirement savings to do, New-Orleans-trip-spending-money-savings to save, bus tokens to buy - oh and most importantly, household expenses to kick in on.  Whew!

I’m still thinking about buying some new clothes before the New Orleans trip, and maybe getting a pedicure before I go.  I’m not too sure about these things, but I’ll see if I can fit ‘em in.

So, I am one day from spending* my paycheck into oblivion.  I like Wednesdays!  I should really flesh out the lyrics of that payday carol, though… hey, if you guys have any suggestions, help a sistah out.

*I know, I know, there’s something that seems un-frugal about spending your whole check before you even get your hands on it, but let’s remember, I am saving Herculean percentages of every check, so even though my checking account will be lean when I get finished with it, my savings account will get fatter by the time I’m done sending money from my paycheck to fly off in several directions.

I have this aunt.  I love her to pieces.  She’s a nice lady - a giver.  If something means a lot to her or she sees someone who is in need, she will make a way to do what she can for the cause.  She’s got several brothers and sisters, and among them, she and her family have the biggest house in the nicest neighborhood and drive the newest cars.  She keeps her hair and nails professionally done.  Sometimes she hosts barbecues and has family over.  They are truly blessed.  She figures that among her own family and her in-laws, people are jealous of her possessions, and that is the reason why their relationships with family members aren’t better than they are.

I personally think that if that is true, she and her husband are partially to blame.

I like to visit my aunt - she’s like my favorite aunt.  But I don’t see her and her husband’s behavior through rose colored glasses.  They might not realize that they are doing it, but they say things that are off-putting.  They talk about things they do and how much they cost.  They talk about things they have and how much they cost.  They accept compliments on new things they acquire… and comment on how much they cost.   They complain about how much the things they bought cost them.  They talk about the cost of things that they are thinking of acquiring.  In fairness, sometimes they don’t talk about the costs… but they talk about the possessions or activities anyway, knowing that the mere mention of these things without numbers will still get their point across.  Other times, they lend family members money and then complain to other family members about how long it’s taking so-and-so to pay them their x-amount-of-dollars back.

I am not jealous of the things that they are able to do with their money - they work hard for it and have been working hard for years.  I’m happy when they get stuff they like.  But another reason why I’m not jealous of them is because I can get my own stuff my own way in my own time.  Yet another reason I’m not jealous of them, or other people who have nice things, is because sometimes, with the big-ticket items, people think about the stuff without thinking about the debt people got into to get that stuff.  Somebody can be jealous of my car if they want to be.  But I bet they’re not thinking about my car payment - if they were, maybe they wouldn’t be so jealous.  When I move into my house, someone can be jealous of my house if they want… but I bet they won’t be jealous of my mortgage.  I am actually more concerned with the financial security I can attain than with the amount of nice things I can get.  So until I’m debt free and I’ve got a great retirement savings, there are more important things for me to be concerned with than what someone else has.

All these things aside, I think that the standoffish behavior that my aunt experiences is due in part to rudeness.  I don’t think that it is necessarily rude to talk about the things you have, or even how much they cost if you’ve been asked.  However, if volunteering that information every time you spend money is how you relate to people, you can’t reasonably be surprised if they don’t want to hear it - especially if they have less stuff than you and you are constantly reminding them of it.  And if they get jealous, it may be due in part to how much people think you have based on what you tell them.  In that case, the problem isn’t your substance - it’s your style.

What sense would it make for me to talk numbers with friends?  Sure, people who know me know that I’m doing okay, but if I talk about money with others, we talk about the stuff we have in common like debt, savings issues, budgeting issues, motivation issues, work issues, and dreams for the future.  I’m not going to put my relationships in jeopardy by annoyingly bringing up how much I have all the time.  Despite the substance I am in the process of acquiring, I try to stay conscious of my style of handling it.  Maybe I’ve learned what not to do from my aunt.

I did all the stuff I had planned to do.  I put a super-sized deposit into the My Own Home fund.  I started a Share Builder account.  I gave to folks who need help.  I left myself an allowance.  And then, I went to get gas.

I usually fill my tank once it gets to the 1/2 mark, in order to keep from eating too much into my allowance.  However, I haven’t put any gas in my since I was on my roadtrip down south, preparing to come back home.  I’ve barely been driving at all in the time since then, and even though I had less than half of a tank, what I had left has been enough for the last three weeks.  But once again, when I decided how much I would leave myself as an allowance, I didn’t take account for how much I would need to fill up my gas tank.  Certainly, I could have only put a 1/2 tank of gas in when I went to the pump, but I would rather fill it at the current price, knowing that the price may go up and that if I don’t fill up now, I will eventually - might as well get it done.  I paid $3.93 cents for each of my 12.21 gallons for a total of $48.11.  I charged it to my credit card, which I’ll pay off at the end of the month.  That way, I’ve preserved my cash flow, which is good to have in case you need it.

I think of cash flow as cash-on-hand, which allows spending without incurring debt.  If you don’t have this, and you find yourself in a situation when you need to spend money, you will either use credit to get by or cut into your emergency fund (if you have one, and you should).  And of course, if you cut into your emergency fund, you’re in debt to yourself.  If you don’t replenish the dollars that come from your emergency fund, it will dwindle and not be enough for you when you really need it, which may lead to - you guessed it - using credit and getting into more debt.  (I’ve been there before and I don’t want to go back.)  I think of my "allowance"/"cash flow"/"spending account" as the fund before the emergency fund.  I can use it for spending, and the better I budget how much my allowance should be after dealing with other plans and obligations, the lower the danger of having to either use my credit card, like I just did for gas, or cut into my emergency fund.

In this situation, I will still keep an eye on my cash flow.  As I spend money between now and my next pay date, I’m going to try to avoid spending $48 of the cash I have now, so that I won’t even have to depend on my next paycheck to pay my credit card bill.  Depending on your next check to pay for something is merely another form of debt to yourself.  The best way to stay out of debt is to pay-as-you-go, not pay-as-you-anticipate receiving future funds.

The problem here is not gas prices, my income, bills, or other obligations.  All of this analysis and spending restraint could have been avoided if I’d simply budgeted differently.  Discipline is important, but so is good planning.  This is a recurring problem area for me in my hustle - one that I will continually keep working on.