Finances

I wish I could meet the 20 year old version of me and tell her how to think of money like I do now. To consider the things that I think of now regarding retirement, savings for college for my son, emergency funds and making my money work for me.

At 20 I was more concerned about the car I drove and shopping, like most people that age. However, when you get to be 35, 40, 45 or older you want to kick your own ass for not thinking then of what you'd need for yourself, your kids, retirement, and the cost of life as you age; bad knees, a running car, college money, and some money for a small vacation.

Yes I can sit around and blame someone else for not showing me how to save but I look down on trying to make excuses for my shortcomings.  I think everyone has the same opportunities, to some extent, to self-educate and learn things you aren't taught in school.  I wish I had taken the time to read more about how to take care of me and preserve my money as I got older.  I would have never gotten myself in some of the situations I faced in the previous 10 years of my life.

With that said, I have found some great sites to help women learn the basics and the sometimes complex issues related to careers, networking, banking, credit cards, investing, and saving for the future.  The best thing is to start young and learn to discipline yourself and create a good budget.

• Daily Worth - a site that covers all sorts of great financial resources
• Little Pink Book - a site for career minded women, small business owners who want to navigate the business world, social media and getting the wardrobe to match your business sense
• ING Direct - get busy investing with ING - why wait?
• Powerful Latinas - or join a group you can identify with or supports you. In my case I like to read about Latina resources so something like this Latina blog/newsletter help me connect with like-minded bloggers, tweeters and sites
• Suze Orman - need I say more - Financial Expert

I don't have all the answers but it helps to try and find someone who can help you find them or get you started.

Leaving

Leaving is such sweet sorrow, or am I being dramatic? Mostly yes.  I was just taking note that I often have a hard time with departing from events like parties, gatherings of any sort or group discussion after a formal meeting.  I don't like to be the first to say I have to go but I can't really pin it on anything.  Maybe everyone feels the same way. You draw attention to yourself and then you have to make excuses if you leave too early but you don't want to be the last to go either.  I catch myself wishing someone would say they have to go at events so I can go ahead and make my move to leave when they do so while they say their good-byes I can quickly make my way out nearly unnoticed and without having to make any explanations.

My sister once told me I don't owe anyone an excuse for who I am and what I do and I agree but boy is it hard to do stuff sometimes without feeling like you have to justify it. Like when I make a doctor appointment or call in sick I always feel guilty for being out of work.  I tend to feel like I need to space out being sick and taking sick time for a doctor appointment by months.  It's not like I can plan on when I am going to be sicks right? 

In addition, although I come in earlier than everyone else at work, I always feel bad for leaving before everyone else.  I don't know why I am like that.  I resent that I take everyone into consideration sometimes when in fact it's me I need to worry more about.  I need to work on not making other people's feelings or reactions my responsibility. 

I can only respond and react to how I feel not how other people feel unless I "directly" caused how they feel at any given time.

To Mail Order or Not

I like shopping online but I often don’t do it because, for one, I don’t trust the shipping service to deliver without damaging what I buy, secondly, I don’t know if I can trust that someone won’t steal the delivery (I would not necessarily suspect a neighbor but I don’t live in a gated community so anyone could climb the stairs to my 2nd floor condo and steal my shipment). Hence, my recent dilemma with furniture shopping
unfolded in a way that left me needing assistance.

As usual I enlisted the help of my ex-husband when it involves carrying large heavy objects other than our son. I seldom, if ever, ask him for help though. I purchased a new media console which I could have ordered online during our snowed in week with a coupon for free shipping. What I feared was that it would be delivered while I was at work and either be damaged or stolen off my porch. I finally decided to just purchase it in person at the store and my ex- helped me get it to my place and up the steps into my apartment. He was also kind enough to help assemble it which required him leaving to retrieve a drill because the manufacturer did not drill 2 parts all the way through where screws were meant to be. The assembled product looks great. It is real wood and not that hard to assemble except for the additional tools required. The picture to the left is a before shot with my son standing righ tin front of it so you can see it well but it's what I was using as a media console. It was actually a desk and I loved that it had so much space but it was also a hoarder's delight – too many hidden compartments which harbored old unnecessary junk just waiting to be purged.  It took my ex and I some effort to get it down the steps and into his truck.

The picture on the left is the smaller media console I got that just tidies up everything.  All the stuff I did not want to keep (movies, games, books) are on sale at my Half.com site here.  If they don't sell I will donate to Goodwill or give them to my ex for his other son.  If I ever move this console will take up less space and will be easier to take down the steps.

Needless to say based on this post my ex and I are and have been on amicable terms for quite some time.
   

My intent was to purchase the matching coffee table but Cost Plus World Market (my favorite store next to Ikea and sometimes Target) did not have it and so they gave me a rain check for when they get more in stock. I am considering the console table as well but I need to really save and not eat out for lunch for weeks on end to really stay within my budget to purchase both.

Shopping mail order is fun too but more for small items that fit in my mailbox or in the package mailbox that we have at our condo unit. The anticipation and the fun of opening a package is worth the wait.

Remembering Sounds

The sound of screen door is one of those sounds like the smell of certain foods that takes you back in time.  It’s a cracking sound.  A brief but intruding ruckus that makes you stop and reflect, at least it does me.  I lose my train of thought at the sound of the slapping of a screen door against its frame.  It always reminds me of living in Los Angeles as a kid and the porch where we played.  The same porch where we’d listen to the Mighty 690 AM radio station.  The same porch where my mom walked up and found my sister and me playing with some horrific bug that looked like a baby infant; they called them nino de la tierra or child of the earth.  It was a bug that resembled a baby in shape and coloration.   

I hardly remember this day but I remember my mom swept it off the porch with a broom all while carrying on about not playing with these bugs.  She’d hurried us into the house upon seeing us squatted down looking at it, the slap of the screen door was two fold, when she went in and when she came out with the broom. We were a small audience inside looking out the screen while she swept it off the porch through a drain space that was built into the wood porch for rainy days.  She often referred back to that story saying that a relative of hers died from the bite of a similar or same bug back in Mexico while he worked in some potato fields.

I remember the concrete steps that led off the porch. These steps were shared by two other duplex type homes that were attached. The two on each side were the lower level, ours being on the right if you were facing the units from the street/left if looking off the porch.  The center unit was the upper level.  Instead of grass, we had ivy for landscaping.  It was always interesting to go digging in the ivy. I’d always find so many different things.  Glass, bottle caps, dismembered Barbie dolls, knives, rocks and many other things. 

 

My sister and I had roller skates with the metal wheels and that sound is another penetrating sound that you hardly mistake for anything else.  Thinking about all the times I fell trying to learn to stand and skate in those things makes my butt hurt.  Many years later when rollerblades came out I ended up bruising my tail-bone while blading the strand in Manhattan Beach.

My Aspie would probably just find these sounds impossible to tolerate.  He’s more used to the sound of loud video games which give me a headache.

Week in Review

This was an incredibly challenging week.  Snowed / iced in from a winter storm that was the worst I've experienced since moving to Georgia.  Surprisingly, seasonal blues seemed to stay at bay pretty much the whole time.  The biggest challenge was being stuck indoors for about 4 days straight.  Indoors with a child who kept saying "mommy", "I want", or "I'm bored" every 3 minutes.  I kept it together for the most part but today was hardest because I had to get him to his dad but he did not want to get up.  He fussed when I asked him to get dressed, again when I said "brush your teeth" and again when I started to hurry him along while he slowly got his socks and shoes on.  He has this thing about the line on his socks annoying his feet. Sometimes he has to wear them both inside out or one inside out depending on which foot is being the most sensitive. His sensory integration issues really become pronounced at times. 

Not long ago when he first started to really have more and more issues with his socks I finally had a really impatient morning with him over it. I basically lost it and said "Gees!! You and these sock issues! Hurry up, we're running late!"  He shotback with "you have your own issues too you know!"  That shut me up.  I was stunned that he'd made this observation because I thought he was oblivious to any issues I actually had or that he'd even worried about it.  It made me realize that he really does take in more than I realize.

So going back to this  morning, it ended by my chewing him out for being so difficult in getting him going in the morning and how frustrated he made me through the week when he fussed over every little thing, from being bored, to losing to me in the Wii, and constantly asking for something once I had sat down.  We were running late too so I was annoyed that I had to ask several times for him to get up and get dressed.

I am not suggesting that I feel bad for lecturing him but I do realize my patience was at its weakest because I'd finally cracked from being stuck in the house for days, tired of the cold, and mostly frustrated that I could not control everything.  Fast forward to tonight, my need for control sent my OCD into overdrive and I cleaned the kitchen.  I threw out things I'd needed to purge for years and now I feel cleansed and back in some form of control.