Budgetary Light

I was one of those kids/people who grew up feeling entitled. I remember exactly where I was when I had this realisation years ago. I understood that because I grew up in a family with a bit of money, I had grown up feeling like I deserved almost anything I wanted. BIG lightbulb moment.

I don’t know why my realisation happened when it did (I was only driving home from the store) but, luckily, my awakening occurred long before the bottom fell out of this economy. That doesn’t mean I learned how to budget, nor that I had even an urge to learn how to budget, in that moment. It did, however, signal a new stage of growth in terms of how I saw myself. It was an eye opener. I was not entitled, I was simply lucky to have been born into an affluent family. Other than that, I was pretty much like everyone else.

Since then, I’ve been experiencing a gradual and growing awareness that I need to take better care of myself and taking care of my finances is part of that. I have also become aware that I had absolutely no respect for money. It came in, I spent it, end of story.

When you know that my mother once purchased a toilet seat with embedded gold coins (tacky, tacky!), you might understand that lack of respect. Growing up, my parents were always arguing/fighting over money. Money was also a way in which my mother measured the worthiness of others—worthy people had it, the less worthy did not. When my wealthy grandfather died, he left my mother only $1 per year and that was because he had to. Money was a weapon. Money could cause pain. Money was trouble. Is it any wonder I had no desire to learn how to handle it?

My mother didn’t know how to budget and, therefore, passed all of her un-knowledge down to me. My budgetary training as a child consisted of getting yelled at when I spent incorrectly. One Christmas, when I was about 11 or 12, I spent all my Christmas money ($20) on record albums. Boy, did I get it when I got home from the store! I never did learn her definition of “correctly.”

My grandfather tried hard to teach me the value of money but he lived far away. I loved and respected him dearly and tried to learn what he was trying to teach me but I was very young and yearly visits weren’t enough to be effective. Especially when the rest of my year was spent with a mother who had no concept of budgeting, nor even teaching in general, for that matter. She was only good at yelling.

The economic crisis has knocked some more sense into me. Now, years later, I’m finally learning how to live by a budget. (Thank goodness for software!) I’ve begun using MoneyWell (for Mac). It’s taken my feelings of total overwhelm and channeled them into feelings of empowerment. (OK, there’s still a little scary in there as well.) It’s based on the idea of using cash envelopes so it’s true budgeting software—not simply a place to record past expenditures. Soooooo, I’m actually learning how to budget! ME! I can now see how the money I am currently spending (or want to spend) affects my entire month or, even, my year. I guess that’s what budgets do! Who knew?! Oh, the power! (I’ve heard Mvelopes for PC is somewhat similar.)

I may have less money now but I feel like I’m much more in control of it. It almost feels like I have more money. Almost. The feelings of entitlement are long gone now. The feelings of overwhelm are diminishing as well and I feel great satisfaction every time I pay extra towards my credit card debt.

The Chinese have years such as the Year of the Dragon and the Year of the Dog. 2009 is the Year of the Ox, which is fitting. For me, it will be the Year of the Budget. There is light at the end of my budgetary tunnel. I hope others will also be able to find their way through this crisis. It’s a hard one but we’re smart people. Strong, too. (This post will be linked to a future post on me learning Discipline. )

Tax Cuts: Gov’t vs. Oprah

This will be interesting. Who’s more powerful, the government or Oprah and Suze? My bet is on Oprah and Suze Orman. For several months now, Oprah has run shows featuring Suze Orman, the money goddess of the common person. Suze is hard at work admonishing people to pay off their credit cards and then start saving. Americans aren’t spending. Is this a result of the Oprah/Suze affect? I hope so because she makes perfect sense, unlike government solutions that may or may not work. I am one Canadian who is not spending unless I have to and I do, indeed, plan to pay off my credit cards. No amount of tax cuts is going to get me to spend when I don’t have to because it feels lousy to be in debt during times like these.

In the past, our Prime Minister, Steven Harper, has had a teeeeeny bit of trouble relating to his fellow citizens. If he really wants to be in touch with the Canadian public, perhaps he and our Minister or Finance, Mr. Flaherty, should be watching Oprah. Ah, what a visual!

Econ Woes (+ Cheer?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it’s dark and cold outside and…. so is the economy??? Lazy segue. Like many others, I vacillate between intense interest and curiosity about how and why the financial crisis happened and what it means, to complete brain freeze and momentary lack of caring.

During my spurts of curiosity, I’ve come across some good references. There’s an excellent CBC interview with Oxford and Harvard scholar, Niall Ferguson, on the current situation. (He’s smart AND handsome!) There’s also an interesting (and short) article written by David Sirota on how things in the States managed to get so bad. This article in the International Herald Tribune talks about Bush’s hand in the “housing bubble” burst. And, another one (long) from the IHT, relates China’s role in the American economy. On a lighter note, here’s a link to Suze Orman and her “Scoops.” Of course, Suze’s main message is, “Pay off those credit cards!”

I know things are bad but I really resent the inference/insinuation from the government and media that I should be spending more in order to help the cause. When there’s a segment on the news about how consumers have stopped spending so freely, there are usually a few words about how retail businesses are suffering. Am I supposed to feel guilty? Lately, it feels like a repeat of George Bush after 911 and his exhortations to the American public to “Get out and spend!” Spending as patriotism—buying things will keep America great. (And safe??) Read about the pros and cons of a repeat of this theory during these times here.

Mark Carney, head of the Bank of Canada, has been criticizing Canadian banks for not being more forthcoming with loans to consumers. Granted, the banks should be passing on their reduced rates to us but perhaps not even that is going to persuade us to spend freely/crazily again. We North Americans appear to be rethinking our habits.

Maybe, just maybe, we have learned our lesson about getting in over our heads, maxing out our credit cards. And, maybe we don’t like the feeling of being so in debt. Maybe we just want to feel like we have more control in our lives. Give us some *credit* for having a brain!

What would happen if people stopped using so much credit? What would happen if we paid for things in cash or, when we use our credit cards, we paid them off at the end of the month? What if we actually started making a savings account a priority? I have a feeling our economies would adjust just fine and I think we would all feel calmer and a whole lot better about ourselves. And, at least one sector of the Canadian government thinks a savings account is important as there are now government mandated tax-free savings accounts available to all Canadians as of January 1st.

Maybe this horrible financial crisis is an opportunity for all of us to wake up, take stock and, in the end, treat ourselves much better. For, as many of us know, money and stuff ≠ happiness. If they did, the Getty family would have had an easier time and there wouldn’t be articles like this.

Scary

 

Today would have been my grandma’s 114th birthday and I was going to write a post about her. But, In the IHT today, there’s a story about murders and other violence perpetrated by American servicemen after returning home from Iraq.

Nine current or former members of Fort Carson’s Fourth Brigade Combat Team have killed someone or were charged with killings in the last three years after returning from Iraq.

I find this extremely disturbing. The whole article is very disturbing.

A close friendship recently came to an abrupt halt. My ex-friend is British and she had sent me one of those internet, seemingly forever circulating posts with the gory pictures and exhortations to “support our troops.” In the email it asked the receiver not to break the chain. My British friend’s post was the third or fourth I’d received either from Americans or Brits and I was sick of seeing them. I sent her an email saying I was breaking the chain. I received another email from her, asking me if I didn’t “support our troops.” It was the last I heard from her.

I am Canadian and am damned glad we did not send troops to Iraq. I will be forever grateful to Jean Chrétien for that. Canadian troops are fighting in Afghanistan and that’s bad enough. I don’t know if I support them or not.

Since I grew up in the States, I am a “child” of the Vietnam war. It was a war the US had no business in, no business starting. I have had close experience with the damaged minds it created in men who were over there. No one “won” that war. And, at the moment, Afghanistan isn’t looking very promising either.

I grew up in Hawaii in the midst of the military. In Hawaii, there are U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine bases. I went to grade school with military “brats.” They were my friends. However, something always rubbed me the wrong way about how their fathers seemed to enjoy the warrior aspects of being in the military. To my small, young mind, they seemed to think fighting and the possibility of killing the enemy was cool. It didn’t fit in my head then and it doesn’t fit now.

I don’t like war. I don’t like the mentality I’ve seen and heard throughout my life. The “we’re going to wipe ‘em off the map,” the “I can hardly wait to get fighting—it’s what we’ve trained for” mentality. It makes me sick. I might be able to understand the desire to defend one’s country if the defenders didn’t seem to enjoy it so much.

So, now, out comes this article. To my mind, it’s no big mystery why these guys are killing people when they get back from Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s probably a boil-over of all the testosterone that got worked up in their training and their fighting and it scares the hell out of me. I use this article/video as a perfect example. I would not want that guy in my neighborhood. Or, this guy.

I am only one teeny person in this world and, alone, am powerless to stop any of this. It makes me sick, sad and I miss my British friend. I know human beings have been engaged in war since the beginning of time. However, I am still a little in hopes that, since our brains have gotten bigger, perhaps we’ll learn how to stop this horrible characteristic of mankind’s time on this earth. On the other hand, it would appear not all of our brains have gotten bigger… I don’t have high hopes. Happy Birthday, Grandma.

(EDIT: I’ve never lived in a war zone and this piece is written from my own North American perspective. I don’t know the mindsets of local soldiers fighting in their own homeland in places like Israel or Palestine or Afghanistan. North American soldiers are not fighting on their own turf, in our countries.)

Black Holes and Dogs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s funny how things you’ve heard a zillion times in your life, all of a sudden take hold. The other day I was looking at National Geographic’s space photos of the year. They really are amazing, especially the one of the black hole. It’s real! Some time later, I heard a woman talk about how her time on earth is temporary. She had had cancer and, for her, she felt her time on earth may be even more momentary. Of course, all of our time here is temporary/momentary.

Naturally, I’ve always known I’m going to die one day but, for some reason, hearing her talk about how, one day, she won’t be a part of all this struck a chord. And, I looked at the photos of the black hole and of the gases on Jupiter, and somehow it hit me that I, too, really am here only temporarily. I’m just a teeny human creature within an incredible, infinitely moving arrangement and unfathomable process of Nature. (Until they discover otherwise.)

I took a walk this afternoon. The cold air was fresh and energizing and the sky was gold and pink. As I looked up, I thought of black holes and distance so incomprehensible its measured in light years. I was in the here and now and it felt good to be outside, part of the world.

Then, a guy with dogs appeared, one of which was not on a leash. It pissed me off ’cause my dogs were on a leash and they like to bite at other dogs. Tussle. Tussle. Tussle over. We continued on our walk but my head was then filled with “What a jerk! Dogs are supposed to be leashed,” and “Why can’t he be thoughtful even though my small dogs look like they should be easy to control?” “I had shoulder surgery, the inconsiderate @**¡!” Boy, it’s reeeeally easy for me to fall out of the here and now.

Then I remembered the part about me being here only temporarily. I looked up at the sky and reminded myself of the bigger picture. Bigger than ME. Bigger than my puny thoughts. There is a huge amount of mass, energy, noise, and movement, that operates in spite of me. A world that, really, I have very little effect upon.

But, here on earth, for me, there is music and there are paintings that bring me to tears. There is rafting down the Futaleufú in Chile, spending a New Year’s Eve with good Cuban friends in Cuba, driving among the fjords in Norway in a BMW with an insane sound system. I’m a lucky girl. My world is pretty big but, some day, it too will turn into something else. 

So, right now, I’m appreciating the cold wind on my face, the pink and gold clouds, and the tunes playing in my ear. I think I may even be appreciating the guy with the dogs. He reminded me how small are the things that so easily irritate me. He reminded me that sometimes I act like a stand-in in my own life, that I get too caught up in things that don’t really matter, that this life is the only one I get.
He changed my day,.. the @**¡!.

Civilised Iceland

Last week, the President of Iceland requested a reduction in his salary: “President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson sent a letter to Minister of Finance Árni M. Mathiesen last week requesting a lowering of his salary in consistency with the lowering of salaries of other officials.” (Iceland Review) Icelanders are such good, solid people. It’s too bad a small group of greedy ones ruined lives in the rest of the country. I know Icelanders will make a comeback and it will be an honourable one. After all, the government has picked two women to clean up the mess! (*smiles*)

Here’s a good article from The Guardian (UK) about Icelanders dealing with their crisis. “Today people have too many trousers.” I admire them.

Less “Wonderful”

I am the one who proudly proclaims, “I love words.” “I respect language.” And, I get all bent out of shape when other writers don’t act/write like they believe the same.

The other day I came upon a widely read blog on writing. I had never read it before and wanted to see what it was like. Within the first opening sentences there were 2 significant typos. Typos that brought a clunking halt to my finishing the rest of the post. My reading momentum hadn’t even gotten started when my eyes were jerked backwards by the obstacles in my path. I fired off an email to the writer noting his mistakes and told him I didn’t finish the post.

A little background… I’ve pretty much had it with typos. They’re everywhere. I spent $800 on a telecourse in which the downloadable class manual was un-downloadable because the page numbers were too screwed up. There were also alpha typos throughout which, in some cases, kept us classmates from making sense of some pretty deep ideas.

I called the instructor on it and her response was, more or less, that grammar and spelling had previously kept her from getting her ideas out. She now has a link on her site where readers can submit typos. That’s ridiculous. That’s HER job. Get an editor for god’s sake! She did procure the services of an editor for her book. Why not show the same respect to the readers of her blog?

This is the most glaring example I’ve dealt with in the wired world. In general, there are typos all over the web. And, they’re being made by people who should know better, like the writer of the above writing blog.

He answered my email. He said he wasn’t perfect, that he was overworked, etc. I can understand that. But, as I wrote to him, in university I was taught that using correct grammar and spelling shows respect for your reader. I still feel that way. Typos feel like laziness to me. I said the same to this author and I said I’d give his blog another go.

Well, today, I did. And, it was a great post about our reactions to the actions of other people. It was about email flaming and negative blog comments and how we are in charge of our own reactions to them. I wrote a Comment saying, “Really wonderful post,” with a smiley face.

Well, despite the fact that I use waaaay too many smiley faces, I realised I shouldn’t have used the word “wonderful” either. It was a really good post. A serious, well written post. It wasn’t a frilly-really-wonderful-smiley-face post. I feel like an idiot.

I, the person who loves words, respects language, who plays Word Police, used words cheaply. Yes, I was feeling energetic and inspired but I parlayed that into a meaningless, frivolous comment. I’m sure James rolled his eyes when he read it. And, rightfully so.

Few things are “wonderful” in this world and I should be more reverent if and when I use this word. I need to be more thoughtful with the words I use. The process by which human beings can create meaning from sounds we make up is truly incredible and I want to remember that. Words matter.