2016-04-16

5 Steps to Gazillionaireness

After five roundtrip flights between California and Japan last year, I racked up enough points to cover, among other things, a two-night stay for us at this lovelily designed hotel. Look at that swank!! It's not the usual Days Inn I stay at.

This strange case of "points"—where first you spend money and then later get stuff for "free"—got me thinking about the how pleasant life is for people who can spend money in the first place. Which then got me thinking, as I often do, about how grateful I am to have a job that pays and gives me benefits. Recently I've also been getting little newsletters from my retirement plan thingy about what I'm supposed to do to prepare for 33 years from now. And with life changes coming up, I feel I should reorganize what financial tips often say.

A recent article on the Mint blog discussed how to prioritize among emergency funds, savings, and debt payoffs. Needless to say, many articles on financial literacy assume that you 1) earn a decent wage and 2) have a manageable-sized debt. Those two things don't always apply, though, given the realities of work in this country. The disillusion of that runs the gamut from a grad student racking up credit card debt to support a family with two kids, to a farm worker who's paid $45 for a whole day's work.

But that's another discussion altogether, one I can't do justice to here or now. So for now I unabashedly position myself among people with a solid income and a one-day-it'll-get-paid-off-sized debt. Here are the things I'm willing and able to do, based on what many of my Retire! magazines say.

  1. Track your spending—Done! You know how much I love Excel spreadsheets. But knowing how much I spend each month is helpful for the steps that follow.
  2. Establish a realistic budget—I don't know how realistic my budget is. But as someone who isn't pregnant or breastfeeding, I feel it's justifiable to have alcohol take up a large chunk of my income. Internet sources have suggestions for budget breakdowns, though a simple one from LearnVest suggests 50% for fixed costs (rent, utilities, etc.), 20% for financial goals (savings and debt payments), and 30% for flexible spending (leisure and all things miscellaneous). I've always liked the rule of threes.
  3. Save up an "emergency fund"—Sources vary on this too, with the above Mint post saying you can start with $1,000. That seems reasonable—not that I can pray to have my emergencies come in small packages... Other sources suggest 3–6 months worth of living expenses. I suppose this is another point on which individuals can vary. 
  4. Set some goals—Like building a dog house or traveling to Ireland! Your "20% for financial goals" have to go somewhere. Plus I read that saving is as important as paying off debt, because if you spend your entire 20% just paying off debt, after you've paid it off, you still have nothing left. Huh.
  5. Give back—If there was a charity organization that gave out free donuts and ice cream to people who wanted them once a month, I'd earmark my money for that. If you're lucky enough to be able to set some goals for yourself, then you might do yourself some emotional good to give back, too. 

I'm aiming to stop doing any work in 2036 so that I can not have to get out of bed every morning. Over the summer I'm going to spend time learning how to beat the market so that I can be a gazillionaire by then.

2016-04-08

My Closet Tells Me What to Wear

I've been reading and watching an assortment of things that have made me want to get rid of all sorts of shit and just live in a tiny apartment (er, where I live already). This also means that I've been itching to extend my "decluttering" antennae into even my lovely walk-in closet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge clothes person. I haven't spent an honest dollar on an article of clothing since August 2015.

Wow.

(Um...WOW. Actually, that discovery kind of worries me. Oh wait, but shoes are articles of clothing too, right?? Oh thank goodness, I was worried I was neglecting my responsibilities as a professional to buy legit work clothes...)

Anyway, buying clothes gives me the willies, not just because I have enough already, but also because of economic and political reasons like how much (or little) people get paid to produce stuff that ends up in landfills way too quickly. At the same time, I don't have the guts to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on "high quality" articles that are supposed to last me for the rest of my life. (Plus I don't have the patience to take good care of my clothes anyway.)

But I am intrigued by ideas like the capsule wardrobe (with its complications, some of which are discussed in this article from Fashion Magazine), and I've been wanting to read Jennifer Scott's Lessons from Madame Chic ever since I saw the Japanese translation at Haneda airport a while back. (Don't ask—Japanese consumers love things from overseas that reference France.) Plus it's nice not to waste money on unnecessary clothes and to be able to find things to wear quickly when I'm about to be late for a meeting and I'm still brushing my teeth.

What I discovered when I actually got to decluttering my closet, though, was just how consistently I do wear most of my clothes. And it wasn't just that—I was reminded of the pieces my sister's bought for me over the years for birthdays and Christmases, the pieces my mother has bequeathed to me that she used to wear in the '70s, the pieces that I've hung on to even if they've required numerous alternations at the dry cleaners (in San Francisco and San Diego) or, god forbid, by yours truly.

I guess I don't have that much to declutter in my closet—and I guess I'm getting quite the mileage out of the pieces that I already have.


But, the real point of this post is the articulation of the system that enables me to maintain the consistency in my use of the majority of the pieces. (Whew! A mouthful.) I want to keep these things in mind, for the next time I (don't) go buy clothes.

  1. Have items in select colors that go together—easy colors like white, brown, navy, and coral. (Wait, is "coral" easy...?)
  2. Organize items in groups—for tops, for bottoms/dresses, for outerwear, etc. 
  3. Wear pieces from the left end of each group—pulled off the rack while brushing teeth...there's nothing else to do during that time anyway.
  4. Hang pieces back up, in groups—no laziness allowed! Hang up the last-worn piece on the right end of each group (tops, bottoms, outerwear, etc.).

Since most items match in color, all I have to care about is the day's weather (and maybe the silhouette of the combination, but who's getting technical). This way I just let my closet tell me what I'm supposed to wear that day, and I can spend my time doing other things—like figuring out how to fit my waist into my mother's old culottes from 1978.

2016-04-04

So Long, March.

A number of posts will, I hope, come out of the Spring Recess 2016 that was the end of March–beginning of April—but first I want to post a poem that I was reminded of this past week, the poem that essentially changed my life.

On My First Son by Ben Jonson

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

The last week and a half have been thought-provoking and mind-blowing...or, maybe it's one because it's the other......