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Browsing category: Uncategorized

  • February 9, 2011

    Drawing parallels between money and music

    I’m a little pissed off and a little embarrassed. I’ve lost a bit of my mojo, musically and financially. The latter is fine; I just need to check in on my accounts more like every day, rather than once a week. The first is harder to deal with. There’s a lack of direction, because there are so many songs I want to learn and, let’s be honest, I almost always put in just enough time to pick up the sloppy basics before I’m off on another tangent. And then there’s pure frustration, because therefore I can’t seem to play anything cleanly and beautifully.

    Via Wikipedia

    I got to thinking about it, and the paths to getting pro at either actually have a lot in common.

    It takes time. Like any other habit, they both take time and practice. You won’t train your hands to work in unison overnight, or build toughness the first day you learn barre chords. This is the hardest part for me – putting in enough regular, raw time to maintain strength.

    No matter how much I save or how little I spend, I still tend to put off checking up on my bank accounts – and of course, the longer I procrastinate, the scarier the whole prospect gets. T can’t fathom how I can spend so many hours dealing to finances every month, but if I don’t, everything starts to spin funny, or at least that’s how it feels.

    It’s painful. If you play (any stringed instrument, probably), you know what I mean. Cramping hands and raw fingertips. Similarly, especially at first, it can be painful to see how much you waste on crap. It was only a few years ago that we could easily blow $50 in a weekend on nothing but milkshakes and sushi without thinking twice.

    It’s frustrating. Let the gat gather dust for a few days and start to lose your calluses and dexterity – and the worse it gets the longer you go without playing. (Course, the deeper your calluses, the more leeway you get – but you’re also less likely to take breaks in that case). Fall off the financial wagon and lose track of what you spend, and you’ll come back to a hot mess. Case in point: disorganisation was recently my downfall. I got $70 cash, and planned to spend it while putting $70 from my cheque account into savings instead. Of course, I didn’t do any banking for a week, and totally forgot about it; that $70 disappeared into the ether. Epic fail.

    It’s about finding tricks and methods that work for you. On the guitar, are many ways to play the same sequence – the same note can be found across different strings and frets. Find a new tab with a different pattern that’s easier for you, or improvise your own. Financially, the cash envelope system might be your saving grace…or it could be your worst enemy. Maybe you like having separate sub-accounts for various purposes. Find a software or spreadsheet that works for you. Not everyone is an Excel fan, and not everyone is comfortable having financial info online.

    But when you nail it? Finishing a week, fortnight or month in the black, or letting rip a blistering, pitch-perfect solo is so worth it.

  • February 8, 2011

    Three things Tuesday

    <via>

    I’ve been moaning too much (albeit most of it silent sulking) about my schedule. I try to remind myself that this is a good thing career-wise, and certainly for my financial goals. Plus:

    • I can wear basically whatever I want on weekends.
    • I can get shit done on my “weekends”, if I am so inclined – the joys of days off when most everyone else is working. Including freelance – which I probably wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.
    • I don’t have to play the “in before the boss, leave after the boss” game.

    In other news, I have about six weeks left to run a 10k this summer if I want to participate in the YMCA series. Which I do. It’s only $5, and they’re on every week. I totally fell off the running wagon last month (the holidays! the heat! the humidity!) so I’ll be aiming for one of the March dates.

  • February 7, 2011

    Link love (Powered by date night and candlelight)

    So, week one of the grocery challenge! Keeping to $500 this month means $125 a week. The boy did half the shopping himself this week – eek! – but we came in at $119.

    Here’s our supermarket receipt (included TP and two tupperware-type containers).

    We have no problem buying a lot of generic brands – Pams, Budget – but if deals are better on brand names, we get those (and for some products like rice wine vinegar, you simply don’t get a no-name variety, at least not at our no-frills supermarket). And there are some things, like ketchup, I never cheap out on.

    $33 at the butchery apparently bought a big garlic steak, pork tenderloins, a pack of two pork medallions, a pack of two small pepper steaks and a package of bacon. (Sigh. SO. MUCH. PORK. If I had been there…)

    And $8 bought some apples, an eggplant, some onions and spring onions. We already had corn, mushrooms and capsicums at home, along with some root veggies, so didn’t need too much produce.

    * * *

    I’m a big fan of making things yourself. Pizza dough. Baking. Coconut curries. Stirfry sauces. All of which will feature on this week’s menu.

    But some things aren’t worth it.

    One thing I hardly ever make from scratch is pasta sauce. Quite frankly when I can pick up ready made jars on special for $3 (or even less, like this week), why would I spend the same amount on two cans of tomatoes (that’s assuming I already have the additional spices/herbs needed), and add in the time and energy spent standing over the stove? (As for the price of fresh tomatoes, don’t even go there…)

    Are there some things you find it makes more sense to buy ready made?

    * * *

    LIFE

    Marian has a new blog, This New Town. Always fun seeing your city through foreign eyes!

    One of Stratejoy’s new bloggers is Katharine, whose inspiring story to date includes climbing the legal ladder, starting a non profit, and having it all come crashing down on her. Now she’s off to chase her culinary dreams.

    Nicole brings us the best review of a sex toy ever. Seriously.

    Vote for Donna at Surviving and Thriving in the Bloggers’ Choice Awards!

    Stephanie Klein navigates tricky water with some houseguests.

    Molly on Money sheds light on ageing and forgetting the names of nouns.

    The first Love Drop has been carried out! Watch Nate and J’s video here.

    Leslie explains how to go about finding a good therapist.

    Geek in Heels is doing a guide to designing your own WordPress theme! Here’s part one.

    MONEY/WORK

    Life Without Pants offers a new way to handle money – whiteboard accounting.

    My Money, My Life on the reality in between money and passion.

    Alexis Grant knows how to land an awesome job after a career break…and now, so do you.

    Ask A Manager tackles a toughie: How to weed out jobs that expect crazy hours from you?

    Dr Aletta shares seven ways to survive an abusive boss.

    Part time work, full time BS: Shiftless and Lazy’s take on working a second job.

    Ginger Won’t Snap needs some career guidance – she’s looking to transition out of marketing/advertising, but to what?

    Oh, a topic near and dear to me. At Get Rich Slowly: How to motivate a partner to save? (My answer: a) job loss b) car dramas and most importantly c) good role models. He does like his toys and shiny new things, and realising he COULD have them if he saved was a revelation. I smile when I think back to the day he bought his Xbox 360.)

    Well Heeled wonders if she’s giving enough…something deeply personal that seems to stir up a lot of opinion.

    FOOD

    I didn’t really come across anything exciting this week, but I haven’t been looking too hard – they were just piling up! After last month though, I think I may have caught up on my recipe backlog. Meanwhile, I have dumplings on the brain…so I bring you Closet Cooking and Fabulously Frugirl’s guides to homemade dumplings.

  • February 4, 2011

    January roundup

    Wooop! Wellington lodge is BOOKED. I have many weaknesses; great ethnic food, all things dessert, and the beach spring to mind. Luxury hotels are another. This is not five-star accommodation (although at $150 a night you’d think it should be), but it will have a spa bath. 😀

    It also means I probably won’t save much this month, as that alone is just over $450 for three nights.

    And now, the cold hard numbers. Percentages, as always, are of total spending, not of income, so they’d be slightly lower in that context.

    If you’re curious, here’s an explanation of how I track and categorise our expenses


    • NOTES

    Clothes/grooming: Haircut for him, new bra for me ($5 out of pocket !)

    Dining and bars – $106? You must be joking! I think that’s a record low, and a WIN for keeping this to $160 and below. (To be fair, another $30 cash was spent on beer at Big Day Out. Clearly, I will be the one in charge of cash at Homegrown, and if he wants to drink he can sort his own money out. Also, we went to the annual Seafood Festival and spent $40 in cash, but I reckon that’s more of an event or entertainment :P)

    Entertainment: We hit up the museum, arcade and the salt pools at Parnell Baths.

    Groceries: Yikes, I knew it was a bad one, but sheesh. It was a five week month thought, right? We’ll see how close to $500 we can get this month (yay short months.) But I’m not sorry!

    Holidays: Remainder of holiday/late New Year spending.

    Insurance: Contents cover for a quarter.

    Mystery shopping: Goodies from Lush. One of which turned out to be a skin saviour, and even though I didn’t score another survey this month, I went back with my 10% coupon to buy Dream Cream out of my own pocket. It’s clear I have chronic eczema, and I refuse to rely on steroid creams all my life.

    T fun: More money on car sounds, mostly. The last of it. We now have embarrassingly loud bass, the kind that benefits nobody, that’s how much power it has. Although the amp came in a neat little engraved blondwood case…classy!

    Vehicle: $460 on new tyres and alignment. (This was so out, it’s literally almost halved our fuel consumption. And with petrol at $2 a litre, we need all the efficiency we can get. Who knows, maybe we can drag a tank out to two weeks now?) There’s one more niggly issue we’re getting looked at (probably a wheel bearing), and hopefully that’ll be it for major costs for some time.

    As for saving, actual total savings was 43.75% of my income this month. It was only 29.4% of my regular income though, so if it wasn’t for freelance I wouldn’t have hit the magic mark. T didn’t bring in much; he hadn’t accumulated any paid leave for the holidays, and worked some short days.

  • February 3, 2011

    Waiting on your world to change


    {photo source}

    Do you ever feel like you’re always holding out for something? Hanging on, swinging from point to point – jungle gym style – and merely existing in between?

    Waiting til your partner finds a job.

    Waiting til you save $100, or $1000, or $10,000.

    Waiting for a job offer.

    Waiting for the end of a project, so you can move on.

    Waiting for a trip, a concert, a big event.

    Waiting for the next big milestone. The next big high.

    I’m know I’m guilty of it. I feel like I’m in limbo. The thing I’m waiting on may not even happen. But it wields a strange power over me. It propels to me put things off, to think twice, to say “what if?”

    It’s like traversing the rocks down at any rugged beach – leaping, clambering, shuffling – anyway you can, ungainly or graceful, just making your way from one to another, trying our best not to slip and fall in between. The end point, the next cove, is always just around the corner. But those moments of flux shouldn’t be forgotten. I certainly don’t think it’s realistic to live every day like it’s your last, but I don’t want days and weeks and, who knows, even months to slip away. The older I get, the quicker those sands pass through the hourglass. It feels like I’m wheeling out the rubbish bin every other day and buying tampons every other week.

    I want to be more present. This means I need to compartmentalise, to not constantly stress about the interviewee I can’t seem to reach for love nor money, to stop wasting time wondering Niue? Rarotonga? Some other island?, to shake up my routine more often with a date night like last night, where dishes, work and to-do lists were put aside entirely for one evening. To enjoy, to savour, to live.

  • February 3, 2011

    February goal checkin

    I can’t lie: I’ve been slack on my 2011 goals so far. February needs to be better!

    So, this month I will:

    1. run 2x a week and do exercises at home 2x a week (separate from warmups prior to runs).
    2. organise our passports
    3. sort out somewhere to stay for Wellington
    4. and try to keep groceries to $500 (I’ll post a weekly summary)

    Goals

    Save 40 per cent of income. I know I did, as I received payment for two months of freelancing and saved it all. Not so sure how that compares with just day-job income…I’ll do a proper breakdown tomorrow!

    Keep eating out to $160 a month.I have a good feeling about January, but all will be revealed…

    Donate to charity every month. Yes, albeit a piddly, gold-coin amount to the Queensland floods. Will definitely make a decent donation this month.

    Text one friend a week. Done, though I can’t say I initiated all of the convos!

    Learn to confidently use full manual settings on my dSLR. Not even close. Need to make time to just go out to the park and mess around.

    Read 100 books. Six down. 94 to go!

    Continue running at least once a week, and run a 10k. Uh…I went for a 10-min run yesterday, the first time in nearly two weeks. Pathetic. I’m off my game and need to step it up! At this rate I’ll never run a 10k this summer, and that is not acceptable.

    On the plus side, my best friend is back in the country, which pretty much amps up my socialising 1000%. I reckon I’ve also outdone myself on the cooking front of late. Today, for example, I’m chowing down on a couscous salad with roasted eggplant, capsicum, onion, tomato, cucumber and lemon, yoghurt and olive oil. I also tried out a couple of crockpot recipes as well as sea salt choc chip cookies, buttermilk biscuits, sweet and sour chicken, chicken strips and more, all of which are a decided WIN. Are you hungry yet?

    (PS – Thanks for all your comments on my last post! Petrol is basically $2 a litre and it’s about $80 to fill our tank (anticipate a tankful each way). I’m overestimating on purpose. We aim to stay in the city, so we can walk everywhere once we get there. I’m hoping to get free accommodation thanks to a friend, and should find out today.)

  • February 2, 2011

    In which my laissez-faireness bites me in the ass

    Wellington Oriental Bay

    Image via Wikipedia

    Oy. Who would’ve thought it’d be so hard to find reasonable accommodation in Wellington on Homegrown weekend a month out? I guess there really are that many outoftowners descending on the capital to rock out, or else there’s some other major event on. Or maybe they just don’t have as many hotels as we do, which I highly doubt.

    Originally the plan was to go down with a group of others on a converted bus (which has beds, a bathroom and kitchen.) However, having now seen said bus, coupled with the fact that I don’t particularly wish to spend time with that particular group of people and that I have more plans for the weekend and don’t want to be constrained by their schedule – we’re going to drive down by ourselves.

    It seems that practically all the city’s accommodation has gone. Especially any in my price range. This leaves us with a few options: backpackers, staying away from the city, gambling on a last-minute hotel deal, or simply making the most of it and staying at a swank hotel. I am yet to make a decision; can anyone recommend an affordable and not too shabby motel/B&B? Cooking facilities a bonus, we’ll probably be there three nights.

    Confession time: I don’t generally budget for trips. But I’m going to try it out and see how that goes.

    Estimated Budget

    Tickets are paid for.

    Petrol: $200 (probably a tank or just over each way)

    Food: $150? We’ll bring some food for the trip down, to bring into the concert, and to cook. Sandwich stuff, fried rice, baking, noodles…uh, other quick and easy things *temporary brainblock* Even if we don’t find a place with kitchen facilities, we have a mini gas cooker which lives in the car. I assume we’ll purchase some food at the arena, make a stop at a supermarket, plus we’ll want to eat out – I’ve got my eye on a French patisserie and a chocolate bar.

    Accommodation: As yet unknown. Ideally around $300. Possibly more like double that. Or half that if we “rough” it, by my standards. But hopefully not.

    Rough Itinerary

    Friday: Drive from Auckland to Wellington. Arrive in the evening. Check in, maybe wander the streets and stretch our legs, then sleep.

    Saturday: Check out aforementioned eateries. Concert. Stumble back to wherever we’re staying, and collapse.

    Sunday: Sleep in. Ride the cable car and visit my friend L. Perhaps a stop at the museum and a stroll along the waterfront.

    Monday: Check out. Drive back to Auckland.

    I’m just coming off a four-day weekend and a recent music festival but by Jove, am I looking forward to it.

  • January 31, 2011

    If you’re gonna brag make sure it’s your money you flaunt; depend on no one else to give you what you want

    <via>

    My dad once asked me what I valued most in the world. He asked me to write it down and give it to him. (He’s odd like that.)

    I never did. Not because I resented my parents (which was often true back then, let’s be honest) but because I really didn’t know.

    His earlier question was easy enough to answer. What is the most important thing?

    Love, of course.

    My brother went for Truth, by the way.

    But this one…I thought about it. And I could not come up with a definitive answer.

    A while later, he called me out on it. You never gave me a reply, he said. But I think I know what it is. You value your independence, more than anything else.

    The plan was always to leave home upon graduating from high school and starting university. I ended up leaving a year and a half before that. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t planned that way. It was messy, conspicuous and no doubt caused gossip among the neighbours. And a lot changed for me after that. To the casual observer, it might seem that I might as well just have moved back in.

    But it went much deeper than that. Barring major catastrophe, I know that I will never again live with my parents. I will do whatever it takes to stand on my own two feet. Even accepting a graduation gift (cash) from them was very difficult to come to terms with. I never ask for help  (and I am aware that is not always something to be proud of, by the way); I find ways to manage on my own.  I have given a lot to BF, but never to the point of jeopardising my own stability. A little part of me has an irrational fear of ending up on the street (although I know it won’t happen). It’s why I’m so set on having a solid emergency fund in the bank.

    Eventually, I realised he was right. The funny thing was, he knew me better than I knew myself. We may have very little in common, but some things, I suppose, are passed down.

    Independence. Essentially, that was, I think, the root of all our problems. The result: I became fully independent earlier than I bargained. And I embraced it. I was born for it. To make my own decisions, to answer to myself.

    Now I’m starting to wonder, can one ever be truly independent working for someone else? I love having a steady job, great colleagues, regular pay. I love not having to chase payments or seek out clients.

    I read a lot of blogs. Some touch on, or even focus on, escaping the 9-5 and lifestyle design. I’m also following a lot of blogs about freelancing, particularly in the writing field. At this stage, that’s not for me. In fact, freelancing is slowly starting to take up more and more of my time…and I’m going to have to draw a line in the sand.

    But increasingly I’m wondering: Should this be something I actively work towards? I’m not saying never, especially as I don’t know if I’d want to work full time when we have kids one day…but is putting most of my eggs in the employee basket going to hurt in the long run?

    What are your thoughts? Is working for a corporation ever the best answer?

  • January 30, 2011

    Link love (Powered by dream cream and downtime)

    Reaction to Amy Chua’s excerpt from her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, continues to reverberate around the blogosphere. Sigh. Can we move on already? But I do feel like I have to share the below via Cactus Kate, which I think sums it up perfectly and explains why, despite many problems in the past with excessively strict parents, to say the least, I’m now at peace.

    The true path to happiness is getting to a state where you are so independent financially and emotionally from your parents and others that you no longer care what they or other people think.

    Amen.

    And as I type this, it’s 9.42 on Sunday night. I’ve just had two entire days of relaxing and sunning with the boy, and look forward to the same tomorrow (happy birthday Auckland!) It’s ridiculously nice having a weekend to myself; I look forward to the day when I can return to a more normal schedule.

    It is blissful.

    MONEY

    FruGal has some excellent tips for saving money on the run (hint: being organised is key).

    Via Living Well on Less: How much is your laziness costing you?

    Frugal Traveler gets burned by a rental scam (thing is, bank transfers are very common here; in fact, we paid for our last holiday by BT).

    Financial Samurai reckons a lot of people make more money than you think.

    Newlyweds on a Budget also has a separate fun money account just for her husband (holler!) and here she explains why and how.

    WORK

    Holland Banks guest posts on Ms Career Girl on how to be taken seriously as a young woman in the workplace.

    A Lotta Lettuce contemplates a potential dream job, complete with nightmare paycut.

    Serendipity gets the work day blues – every job is tough and it’s not as easy as it may look!

    Carol Tice argues that what freelancers should really fear is having a job.

    Kevin at Thousandaire explains how to tell if your position is expendable.

    Kyla Roma shares a truly inspiring account of how she quit her day job and found her path.

    Alexis Grant explains one great way for aspiring writers to get their foot in the door.

    Aloysa always has great anecdotes – her latest is on doing business Mob-style.

    FOOD

    Stonesoup’s 7 ways to enjoy your food more and lose weight.

    Officially intrigued and want to make it: Soda bread, via the $120 Food Challenge. Oh, and here’s how to get velvety stirfry chicken!

    Some sad truths about meat and cheese from Penelope Trunk.

    LIFE

    Sing it loud. Hang On Little Tomato on the backlash we get for being young but not wanting to party it up all the time.

    Who knew cornstarch was such a superstar? Here’s some handy household uses for it via DIY Life.

    I’m trying to soak up all the wedding tips I can for future reference; this week Jessie shares how she saved on invitations.

    Speaking of marriage: “Don’t try to find a person that’s perfect because you’ll always be disappointed.  Don’t settle either, but do your best to find a person who has flaws you can live with.” Fabulous stuff from First Gen American.

    Also love this post by Tall Brunette on femininity and identity.

    Dating and being a flirt is hard. It’s even harder in a foreign country, as Jamie finds out.

    This brought tears to my eyes – Molly at These Little Moments reflects on the power of a mother’s love.

    A few months on, Chelsea Talks Smack looks back on her last relationship – so powerful, a must read, and I’m sure most of us can relate.

     

  • January 28, 2011

    Why Twitter rocks my socks

    Twitter logo initial

    Image via Wikipedia

    In the last year, I have:

    • won tickets to the premiere of Tomorrow, When the War Began
    • won tickets to the Seafood Festival (this last one I am particularly stoked about as you may have guessed)

    Not only that, I was alerted to a second release of Metallica tickets last June, enabling me to snag general admission tickets and sell off my seated ones instead.

    Thank you, social media.

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