Money Diary, January 2009

Inspired by Ramit's Money Diaries series, based in turn on New York Magazine's Sex Diaries, I give you... my month in money. I started this thinking it would be as boring as Doogie Howser's blinking cursor, but given the job instability talk I decided to post it for your voyeuristic enjoyment.

Friday, 30 January
10:09 a.m. It's pay day. Shiner has the money to open a Roth IRA. This $3,000 contribution could be $376,000 when we retire in 30+ years! As though an 8% annual return is remotely imaginable to me anymore.

12:01 p.m. I brought my lunch and learned there was a Superbowl potluck party at work. All food seems to have come from the support staff, no lawyers were asked to bring anything although I have been invited to eat a few times. Does this seem weird and uncomfortable to anyone else? I had some cake and grazed on the snacky bits to seem appreciative but not vulture-like.

Saturday, 31 January
1:59 p.m. Good to know: one of the local mall theaters still has a not crappy matinee rate. Slumdog Millionaire is very enjoyable. Shiner says it makes him want to go back to India. I wish.

5 p.m. Got a bee in my bonnet about taking a month between jobs this summer to study Spanish in Central America. Programs in Copas Ruinas, Hondouras; Antigua, Guatemala; and Suchitoto, El Salvador all look promising. I would love to go back to Suchitoto. Is this really something I could afford to do? Maybe with a tax refund? Uh... why the hell am I thinking about a luxury expense like this right now?

Sunday, 1 February
1:30 p.m. Go to the fancy eyeglasses place to try on specs. I'm trying to price out what I might want to get in this, my last year of vision coverage, so I know how much to pay into my FSA. The pair I like best is $540. Yoinks. I will look around some more. What am I going to do when I don't have vision coverage? Not break my glasses, I hope.

9 p.m. First married fight about money. Awesome.

Monday 2 February
6:32 p.m. Shiner thinks maybe our money fight last night was moot, because he has money to cover the shortfall coming in through various reimbursements. Arrrggghh!

Tuesday 3 February
9:08 a.m. American Express invites me to pay $450 for the privilege of telling people I am a platinum cardholder. Unless that designation comes with a complimentary everything, I can't imagine that being a good bargain.

Thursday 5 February
12:20 p.m. Three members of the support staff gather around outside my office to gossip about job stability. It's bad news bears. So far the gossip is that layoffs will be affecting staff only, not lawyers, but it's probably just a matter of time. Then it will be associates (I'm in this group), and they'll try at all costs to avoid cutting partners even though that's where the real savings (and frequently the dead weight) are. Ugh, I am feeling for our awesome staff. But what can you say? "Sorry your job's on the block while the overpaid lawyers like me are being coddled, can I get you anything at Starbucks?"

Friday 6 February
9:23 a.m. Go to the coffee shop to redeem my coupon for a free half pound of beans. This past year they've changed their loyalty club from a simple punch card you use every time you buy beans or a drink to a swipey debit card sized thing that prints out a coupon that's only good for a month. The new card takes up more room in my wallet and I'm less likely to take advantage of the rewards because of the expiration date. Also, the shamelessly tit for tat baristas can't give my card extra punches when I tip them. Damn those crafty corporate bastards and their revamped loyalty program!

Sunday 8 February
4:31 p.m. Wrap a bookstore gift card for a friend's child's birthday party, regifted from Christmas. Is it really regifting if it's pretty much exactly what I would have bought if I'd gone to the store? Probably.

Monday 9 February
12:30 p.m. On a work trip. None of my expenses are really expenses since they'll be reimbursed. But the credit card rewards are mine, all mine! I am approximately $1.08 richer.

Tuesday 10 February
4:30 p.m. Wild and speculative gossip with coworker about our job stability. Scary.

Wednesday 11 February
5:53 p.m. I've been out of the office today. A coworker calls to tell me a bunch of lawyers were laid off this afternoon, including some (that I know of so far) who are good friends. Fuuuuuuck. It is not surprising the layoffs have begun. It is very surprising that the ones I initally heard of were among those laid off. Shocking, actually. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Thursday 12 February
9:36 a.m. A coworker suggests coffee as an opportunity to debrief on the layoffs. Most of the day will be spent on this sort of conversation, in one way or another.

10:20 a.m. One laid off coworker is in. I stop by his office to tell him how messed up it is that he got the shaft and offer him any networking help I am able to provide. Subsequent conversations with my assistant, her staff supervisor, my big cheese. Everyone is extremely sad. I want to go home. I stick around, to no practical effect.

Friday 13 February
4:32 a.m. I can't sleep, still angry about what has happened at work. I get out of bed and putter while listening to the first news radio of the day. I dread work today, for the first time in a very long time.

5:07p.m. I call my mom. She gets angry on my friends' behalves. My mom is always good for sympathy outrage.

Friday 14 February
9 a.m. Board meeting. We, like a lot of other nonprofits right now, are having serious budget issues. Staff reductions may be a necessity. No matter where I turn it seems like I just cannot get away from this topic.

5:30 p.m. Trip to the grocery store for dinner-making ingredients. Smooshy cheese, bread, the fixins for fish cakes (which, like most stuff we cook, will make two or three meals for the two of us), and Karma Sutra ice cream, oooh, sex-ee. We listen to rockin love songs, make dinner, drink wine, get biblical, eat ice cream, and look through the proofs we just received from our wedding photographer. It's maybe the best Valentine's Day I've ever had. And not too spendy, either.

Sunday 15 February
1:13 p.m. I start making molasses cookies. I realize I am out of ground cloves. I hate running errands for one item. I grind whole cloves in the electric coffee grinder. They taste slightly coffee-y, but I am pretty sure that won't come through in the baked cookie. If it does I'll cover it by using extra rum in the glaze. I am fantasizing about an as-yet undiscovered recipe for a dense, coffee-flavored cookie when I find myself also out of allspice. I sub nutmeg. When did I run out of my favorite baking spices?

7:10 p.m. Our first nice dinner out in a while, and part of my V-Day present to him: dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant, somewhat improbably located in an outer suburb. About $50 with beer, and leftovers enough to provide lunch for both of us on Monday.

Tuesday 17 February
4:31 p.m. Submit expenses from my dental appointment to my FSA. It's nice to be able to do it by email rather than fax. I have an irrational hatred of fax machines. Hopefully I'll get this reimbursement check in the next week and won't have to float myself from savings to cover the credit card bill.

Wednesday 18 February
10:16 a.m. Email Shiner:
"Story about advertising on people's bodies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/business/media/18adco.html?_r=1&ref=business
I wouldn't shave my head, but I'd totally put something on my pregnant belly for a few grand. Preferably a liquor ad."
I probably wouldn't do it in the end. Heck, I won't even wear shirts with logos on them. But the comic potential is high.

Friday 20 February
4:38 p.m. I get back on the name changing horse. Shiner has been lapping me in terms of getting his documentation changed. I fax in name change stuff for the ING savings account that holds my pre-marriage cash. I have the joint savings stuff ready to go but he needs to change his name with HSBC (he has his solo savings there, too) before I can officially add him to the account. I'm afraid if we add him under his new name before he's changed his name on his sole account things might get screwy. Having multiple identities is not all it's cracked up to be.

7:10 p.m. Work on my taxes while watching Dollhouse. Shiner owes about $800 between state and federal. Not too bad, but he's not happy. He thought he'd get a refund, but those mid-year job changes and pay increases will bite you if you're not careful. I will get about $2100 back, thanks mostly to my relatively new mortgage. That's less than in past years but still more than I'd prefer. Why can I not get those blasted IRS withholding calculators to work for me? And what should we do with the net refund? What I really want to do is spend it on four weeks in a Spanish immersion program between Job 1 and Job 2 later this year. Part of me says that's a great idea because I will have both the flexibility and the money at the same time, and I have always lacked one or the other of those things. But on the other hand, Paul Krugman is freaking me out. Really? Five or six years until we're back on track? Maybe my tax refund should just live in the bank for a while. At this point I can't tell if it would be irresponsible to go for it or paranoid to refrain.

Monday 23 February
12 p.m. Liz Pulliam Weston is a fun killer. Now she's got me thinking about all these more responsible things we should do with the tax refund. Saving for car expenses or home maintenance are two things she suggests that we haven't made a lot of progress on. Scratch that, over the last two and a half years I've saved about $10,000 for home repairs, which is really good progress, but a few major repairs later it's all been spent. Furnaces are expensive. Ditto water heaters. We would probably do well to assign most of the refund to one of those purposes. Dammit.

3:57 pm. Free ice cream in a conference room to celebrate something or other. Doesn't matter, I'm happy to celebrate just about whatever in exchange for ice cream.

Tuesday 24 February
8:22 p.m. Taxes filed! I am embarrassed about how little I've given to charity this year (just under $1,000 in deductions), though one mitigating factor is that a lot of the money I gave away this year went to political candidates and organizations that do lobbying or electoral work, so they don't show up on my taxes. Still. I'd estimate it's no more than $1600 total. And yeah, I take a pay scale hit at work for the pro bono work that I do, and yeah, I give my time to these causes, but seriously, money needs to be meeting mouth here. I resolve to get on the bandwagon during Lent.

8:23 p.m. Obama's economic address is better in HD, you get a much better view of pols pulling faces.

9:20 p.m. Shiner and I make three microloans with money we got as a wedding gift. We tried to make a fourth but the Kiva website was sticky. At least once we tried to fund someone just as her loan had already been fully funded by someone else. The other time I thought it went through, but it hasn't shown up in our portfolio so who knows. We'll try again when I'm back in town from some work travel. We have another couple of Kiva gift certificates we have to find, too.

Wednesday 25 February
5:55 p.m. On the way home from work I talk with Shiner about what I am thinking about giving up for Lent. I figure since I want to do something money-related, with the object of spending less money so I can give more to charity, it will affect him to and I should get him on board even though he's not an Easter celebrator. I suggest not eating out at all. He is anti. (rather, he's pro-eating out). We settle on Compacting again this year, but I have a couple built in exceptions like last year: I get to buy myself a birthday present, and I will continue shopping for suits since I need them for my job change and everything seems to be on sale right now.

Thursday 26 February 2009
2:55 p.m. Phone contact with a guy I met on couchsurfing for a free place to crash tonight--I am traveling for lawyer stuff that for various reasons I don't want to seek reimbursement for. He seems really nice. He has a puppy! And a fiance, which makes me feel, happily, like he's less likely to hit on me or be creepily overly friendly. I end up loving couchsurfing, my hosts are very cool people.

Friday 27 February 2009
10:25 p.m. Doing bills for the month. I still haven't gotten a reimbursement from my flexible spending account, and I have to float $220 from savings to cover a dental cleaning. I hate it when I can't get everything done at the end of the month. It makes me nervous I'll forget something. Habit is my crutch.

Saturday 28 February 2009
8:28 p.m. I HATE it when people pronounce the acronym for Individual Retirement Accounts as "Ira." As in Glass.

Gay Marriage Lawsuit In The Offing

Same sex couples can get married--that's spelled M-A-R-R-I-E-D, not C-I-V-I-L-L-Y U-N-I-F-I-E-D-- in Massachusetts. But that doesn't win them any door prizes in the federal benefits lottery, because the federal Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage as existing only between one man and one woman. That means same-sex couples don't get the goodie bags opposite-sex married folks do, like Social Security benefits following the death of a spouse, eligibility for spousal IRAs, health insurance benefits for the same-sex spouses of federal employees, the constellation of benefits available to spouses who file joint tax returns... Et freakin cetera.

Fifteen married gays and lesbians denied these benefits are filing suit today in federal court to challenge this aspect of DOMA. This is going to be a really interesting lawsuit to watch, especially since the 9th Circuit (the federal appeals circuit encompassing the left coast states) ruled about a month ago in two separate proceedings that DOMA aside, court administrators in that circuit had to give health insurance benefits to same-sex spouses. These were internal administrative proceedings, so they don't have any precendential value, and only one of those decisions directly addressed the issue of DOMA's constitutionality (finding: not so much constitutional). But when you've got both a judge with a reputation for being a liberal (Reinhardt) and a Reagan appointee (Kozinski) finding that certain federal benefits must be extended to legally married same-sex couples, that might hold some real persuasive power for the court hearing the Massachusetts case.