get the work done
I have to get a contractor to work on my front porch. The water isn’t draining off the roof properly, which is affecting the floor, which needs to either be re-decked or replaced with concrete. April showers don’t end in April, so we are calling for contractors to look at the roof and gutters, and give us an estimate for the floor. I hate doing this. We had to get estimates from contractors when we got the work done on our plumbing, and that wasn’t fun – trying to schedule appointments, trying to compare quotes that were in different formats. This time I hope it’s not as much of a pain in the butt.
Got any suggestions that will make the estimate-gathering-process easier?
keeping cool
Mister Ant and I are not about to pay a sky-high electric bill. We just got out of high-gas-bill season. We are in no mood to substitute one high bill for another. Philadelphia has been unseasonably hot for the last few days, with ninety degree temperatures. But we have not turned our central air system on. It’s not just because we don’t want to spend the money on a higher bill. It’s also because it makes no sense. Coming out of sixty-degree weather means that all you have to do is keep the hot air out of the house and the cool air indoors. We used window blinds and curtains to control the amount of sunshine that came in the house, and used ceiling fans to circulate the air. We would have cracked the windows, but it probably would have just let hot air in, along with the pollen that neither of us can breathe comfortably. The interior temperature hasn’t gotten above eighty degrees, which doesn’t bother either of us because we both like it warm. In fact, we both kind of hate air conditioning, because it’s only supposed to make you comfortable, not make you need a sweater indoors in the middle of summer, but so many AC users don’t see it that way.
I’m not saying that we’ll never use our central air system. It was one of the perks about getting the house. But we probably will use our blinds, curtains, windows and ceiling fans a lot. Our heatwave is over now, but in the future, we will program our programmable thermostat no lower than 75-78 degrees. And we will keep our money in our pockets. It worked for us in our air-conditioner-less apartment, and it can work for us in our new home.
The Ant and the Co-worker
Once upon a time, an Ant started a job. She had been working at the job for maybe three months, and then one of her co-workers invited her out to lunch. The Ant and the Coworker chowed down over salads, chatting in a friendly way, and then the tone of the conversation changed when the Coworker got to her real motive for asking the Ant out to lunch.
“You’re getting screwed over,” the Coworker told her younger companion. “I’ve been working here for years, and I know how these guys operate. I handled the paperwork for the applicants for your job. I’ve seen your qualifications. They are not paying you enough.”
This took the Ant by surprise. When she interviewed for the job and accepted it, the compensation was more than her last job, and that’s all she really cared about. She figured that she’d made a good career move simply by ceasing to be unemployed and making more money. But she hadn’t done any research about how much money she should have been paid. She didn’t try to negotiate for a higher salary. In fact, the Ant didn’t really know anyone who worked in positions where the pay rate was negotiated. Coming from a working-class background, every one she knew was simply glad to get whatever was offered. She lamented not having done salary research and negotiation after her lunch with Coworker. After working at the company for a while, the Ant discovered what some of her other co-workers were making. Whaddaya know? The Coworker was right! You know, the Ant worked for this company just long enough to get laid off in time for the annual raises, and was laid off just after becoming eligible to invest in the company’s retirement plan. You know, “last hired, first fired” when the times in the industry got tough.
There’s one other thing about this story… the Ant and the Coworker were both black women. Coincidentally or not, the management and other co-workers were white males.
I thought of this story when I read this article about how minorities with degrees are still getting paid less than their white counterparts with similar credentials in the workplace. I think that in this story, the societal stratification by race that persists among races over generations may have had a part to play. I’m supposing that a larger percentage of minorities with degrees are first-time college graduates. I’m also supposing that many lower-income and/or working class people simply do not negotiate salary. They can’t teach their children about negotiating salaries from a position of experience. Their children may even seek and obtain higher education – bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and yet, certain professional necessities are not a part of their experience, like networking and negotiation. These factors can help to make all the difference in a young worker’s upward mobility, snowballing in their compensation rates over time. These effect of these disadvantages may or may not be amplified by racism, depending on the situation.
My advice to any workers of any race or gender is that it is important to learn and understand your worth, increase your bargaining power in the labor marketplace by strengthening what you have to offer, and learn how to use your contacts to your advantage, be it through mentorship relationships or getting inside information on how your industry works. As the Coworker did with the Ant, each one, teach one. It can’t be said enough.
shopping, the aftermath
What’d I buy? Fifty dollars worth of stuff at the home improvement store and some socks. LOL! I picked up some paint, some topsoil, and some rechargeable batteries before heading over to a discount retailer to get about $8 worth of socks. Life is good. I spent the weekend visiting friends, dating Mister Ant, and doing yard work.
It’s a wonderful life, what can I say?
shopping!
I looked through my check register yesterday. The only money coming in to my account is from unemployment and Mister Ant’s share of certain expenses. The only money going out is to my e-fund, bills, and occasionally, groceries (Mister Ant is buying most of those) or convenience foods bought in the rare times I’m on the run. That’s it. I haven’t bought any books or music. No clothes or shoes. No “toys.” No jewelry, no makeup, no haircut, nothing.
I’m so used to self-deprivation to save up the down payment for the house I’m already living in that I didn’t even notice enough to care that due to unemployment, I’m doing it even more now than I was when I was saving.
You know what I want? Really, really want? The work done on my porch, and to do the gardening in my front yard. To decorate my bedroom. To buy certain pieces of furniture. It’s funny, really. That the first thing I’d do with some discretionary funds is work on decorating my house, instead of anything else. Well guess what? I am putting a chunk of cash in my e-fund, and then with what’s left, I am going shopping!
planning helps
I have a wedding semi-planned on virtual paper, saved in my computer. It’s nice to start arbitrarily saving for your wedding, but I imagine it makes sense to, at some point, figure out what you want and how much it will cost. I always do better when I have a defined goal to reach for. I don’t have a defined number yet, but actually having the skeleton of a plan on paper is a good first step to getting me there.
homeowner adjustments
It cost Mister Ant and I $300 more to live in this house during April ‘09 than it cost us to live in our old apartment during April ‘08. As adjustments go, that’s not bad at all. But we’ve only been living in the house for three months now. I imagine there is still a lot to learn about what it really costs to live here, since we haven’t gone through all four seasons, and we haven’t finished making changes and weatherizing and stuff like that. I know about the $300 difference because every month, I (since I’m the designated family bookkeeper and money geek) tally up receipts for the money we spent to maintain our household. It’s part of our system for splitting expenses fairly each month. We save the tally in a spreadsheet, which is great for looking at expenses and figuring out if there are changes we can make, or seeing how lifestyle changes affect our finances.
From my spreadsheet, I know that on average, utilities cost about $90 more each month than they did before we moved, because we’re heating more space, using appliances we didn’t have before, and paying a water and sewer bill, which we didn’t have to do when we were renters. The other additional bill is the security alarm, which is a must in our neighborhood, or so all the neighbors’ security system signs indicate. We’re also spending more on food. We’re buying things that are on sale in higher quantities now, since we have room to store the surplus. We are also eating out less, because cooking in the kitchen – a real kitchen with nice appliances and real counter space – is enjoyable now, and we’re trying to be healthier, so that’s the other reason we’re buying more groceries. I wasn’t tracking our individual spending on eating out, but I know I have personally spent much less on eating out since we’ve been in the house. Our “miscellaneous” category is bigger sometimes too, since that’s where we include stuff like the mattress and linens we bought last month, or the bedroom decorations and gardening things I’ll be picking up in the future. As the house starts to look more like what we want it to look, expenses like these won’t pop up as often. The miscellaneous expenses could be bigger now, but I’m taking my time on decorating until my income picks back up.
We knew when we made the transition from a small one bedroom flat to a three bedroom house that household expenses would pick up. I actually expected the adjustment to be worse, and I’m glad to see that we are handling the expenses so well. Now that a few months have passed, I am actually able to afford to save money, and so is Mister Ant. It’s going to be even better when I start working again!
string around your finger
I have signed up for as many e-bills as I can get. It gets annoying, separating the envelopes from the bills for the recycle bin and shredding bin pile, respectively. It’s nice to know that as I and others decline paper billing and pay bills online, less paper is being wasted. Only thing about it, though, is that after I get an e-bill, there is no tangible reminder of the fact that I have the bill. There’s no pile of bills sitting on a table waiting to be paid. Unless I pay every bill upon receipt, I have to remember that there’s a bill that has to be paid.
I generally handle this with a little pocket calendar that they handed out at the credit union for free this January. On it, I put the amounts of bills on their due dates, when I get the e-bills, along with upcoming events where I know I’ll have to spend money, like a medical appointment or buying a birthday present. Every time I get paid, I look at the calendar to see what’s coming due, and then I budget and pay the upcoming bills and expenses as far ahead on the calendar as I can. If that fails for some reason, say, I lose my calendar, my credit union’s online bill pay has reminders that I’ve set up, so that if I can’t remember when a certain bill is usually due, I can get help there. So far, so good. I haven’t missed a bill in years.
I see it as the perfect marriage between technology (online billing) and non-tech (a paper pocket calendar).
curb appeal
My front yard is simple. It slopes down from the porch to the sidewalk, and it’s bound on all four sides by walls. There’s a strip close to the porch that has some bushes, but other than that, nothing grows but grass and the weeds I pull up. My neighbor has some pretty perennials in a bed of mulch that rides along the sidewalk we share. I like that! I’m going to mirror the shape of her mulch bed on my side of the sidewalk, and it’s going to look like we coordinated our gardens. (At least the shape, anyway – I’m not using the same plants.) I love symmetry! It will make for a more pleasant approach to both our homes. I also need to put some more prominent house numbers in front of the house, ’cause the ones I have now are easy to miss. I have a flower box on the porch, too, that I haven’t filled yet.
I haven’t really done much with the front yard except keep it tidy so far. I need some work done on the porch, and I don’t want my new flowers trampled by workmen, so the porch work comes first. All these changes will cost money, and I’m being really conservative until my job situation improves. But I hope to make these improvements soon. I think I have all the yard tools I’ll ever need to keep up with the yard, except a rake, to pick up leaves. (My city encourages folks to recycle grass clippings by leaving them on the lawn.) But I’ll still need mulch, plants, and the house numbers. And maybe some cute little gardening gloves. I’ll keep you posted on how much all this’ll cost me.
Every once in a while, it’ll dawn on me that I’m a homeowner, and it still makes me happy to think of it. I’m going to be so proud when I finish my yard project!
giving it a shot
Thanks to Converting A Spendthrift’s coupon giveaway, I’m in a great position to give using coupons a shot at the supermarket, because yesterday, I won the giveaway!
The timing couldn’t be better, since I just realized this past Tuesday night at the grocery store, that although I’m doing well at the register, I could probably do better, if only I invested the time to learn about how to use coupons to my advantage.
Today I have a job interview. Please pray for me! I’ll let you know if it went well.
