Company Coming

Today is Saturday.  I have my girlfriend, T coming.  She is from the city where we used to meet.  We met over a mutual love of coffee, about 15 years ago.  Her DH also rode motorcycles, and the 4 of us went on a few rides together.  Then in 2009 I got my license and my own bike.  T got her license and her bike a few years ago.  I have not told T I have my bike listed for sale.

She was going to come down the weekend of my birthday, last weekend, but she had to make up for some time away from work.  She had the flue bad enough, she had to go the er.

I look forward to talking to her about that and about yoga.  We started yoga together about 7 years ago.  I also look forward to talking about doing a yoga retreat next year.  And going back to the city first week of April and going to our old yoga studio together.  I am glad I am skipping yoga today, my shoulder continues to be really persistent in giving me pain and numbness.  I have been the to chiro twice, and will go couple more times before our road trip next week.

Another thing I look forward to is talking to her about what I am struggling with a little bit.  I will talk about it here in the future.  I have not talked to another person, except my sister.  This is sort of related to me having my bike listed for sale.  I want to continue to condense our "stuff", liquidate and focus on having some fun experiences.  Sometimes I feel like DH is with me, sometimes I feel like he wants other things.

He did dig deep and agree to list some extra things, like some expensive watches, a couple sets of gold clubs and an expensive coat.  But he continues to shop and it makes me feel very uncomfortable.  If he is just shopping to curate and condense, I am ok.  If he is not being honest about just condensing what we have and curating, but continues to aimlessly shop we will have a big problem.  Even doing that, frustrates me because he shows no such enthusiasm for doing things, improving his health or home related stuff.  I shop too, but I have the same enthusiasm for home projects, working in the yard, setting up our garden, hiking, crocheting, yoga, etc.

We both spend too much time on our phones!  Lol.  Well, I do have to remember that things don't change overnight.  This is a big adjustment and I am trying to be patient for one year.

What are you all struggling with?  Anything you can related to?

Retirement and Money

Talking about retirement is incomplete without talk about money.  It is a weird topic for me.  It certainly comes from my upbringing.  I guess most of us do carry some emotion around this topic.  I have listened to Dave Ramsey and Suzi Orman - they are just dynamic and accessible.  Less accessible is honest, not perfect, real everyday people and their stories.  At least specifics.  Most people will talk in generalities.  Actually, some of the more specific numbers I get are other bloggers.  Whether they are accurate is no way to tell.

I looked at some statistics...According to the Motley Fool, 40% of Americans do not have enough money to cover a $400 emergency.  This same article says that the ave American hh savings is $16, 420 while the median is $4380.  That means most Americans have closer to the $4380 figure.  In another article, this same source indicated that ave retirement costs a bit over $700,000.  It also indicates that 1/3 of American hh do not have ANY money saved for retirement.

This tells me that we are a bit above average.  We have more saved up and less debt and also DH has a small pension which is a trend of a bygone era. 

For us, our goals were simple.  Pay off our house and credit cards.  See if we could anticipate our budget needs, both bare bones and with a little flesh for wiggle room.  6 months emergency fund.  2 months immediate emergency fund for Oct and Nov - before pension and SS start.  I have our taxes saved up for house/personal property that is due in Oct.  I also have a year of homeowners insurance ready to renew that policy in mid October.  We have gotten everything in the house the way we want it (kitchen flooring and lighting).  No other home improvements for a while.  I have cash to buy a TV for my kitchen and I have paid off our NYC trip.  What else? 

Another way that makes us stand out, is that DH is 13 years older than I and I can and will go back to work.  We have decided that just for the time being, we are going to take a break and see how we do on this reduced budget.  I can start looking in 2019 or 2020.  I don't really care what career track I am on, so I will be fine reinventing myself. 

We have decided we are going to sell our old suburban and my motorcycle.  If we sell my Harley, we may get a small cheaper bike I can hop on just to go to the next town, or just scoot up the road.  The suburban, we will keep that money and save it to eventually replace DH older car.  We are still paying on my Toyota truck, but that fits in budget fine and we need reliable vehicle to be able to drive back to the city to see my Granny.

I am using my last paycheck for spending money in NYC.  I can't think of a more fun way to celebrate that!

Money Matters

Money especially matters when you treat it with respect.  It is crazy how when I was a young adult and made twice the money I make now, I never had any.  Once I met my DH and we began sharing we realized we had some goals in common and some bad habits in common.  Having another person made me want to become more accountable and responsible.  So, we discussed our goals and I wrote down our plan to get us out of debt on a napkin early in our dating relationship, as a preparation to discuss marriage.  My DH was going to just turn it over to me, but I wanted us both to work on it.  Not just one dictating to the other - that would spell disaster.  If not sooner, then later.  So, we both have become much more about saving some and spending some.  Making some investments and eventually we have a path to retirement.  Looking back, I think that even just little daily poor decisions about money had a cumulative effect.  Similarly, making better decisions has a cumulative effect.  As a young career person, one presentation by our HR department at our Fortune 500 Insurance Company made me commit to a 401(k).  The concept of compounding interest is powerful  displayed in tables for comparison.  Today, I am all about the bucket system.  Some buckets are literally stashes of cash and some are virtual buckets online, but the idea of saving for something separately from a combined pool of money has been very helpful for me.  Little daily decisions turn into yearly decisions and that behavior becomes habit.  I have a friend I enjoy coffee with, he said that when he was growing up and learning the right way to behave, instant gratification made him consider everything as negotiable.  You are negotiating with yourself for what you value.  I relate to that a lot.  Today I can consider long term goals over instant gratification and having a little money put aside here and there is my new value.  It is NOT negotiable.  I told DH that when we pay off our retirement home later this month after our city house sells, I already have a years worth of home insurance and real estate property taxes saved up.  Then right away, I will begin saving month to month small amounts to pay 2019 amounts.  He was pretty happy when I told him our plan. 
Happy June and happy pay day everyone!

Ready for long weekend

10/19/17
Ready for long arts & craft weekend, except I am tired

I have been getting ready for 2 weeks for my girls weekend with my sister, neice, aunts and cousins.  Now it is the day I will leave work early and drive down with one of my aunt's (M2).  I am driving my husband's car today, it is an older smaller sedan, and gets better gas mileage than my SUV.  M2 will have her husband bring her down to where i work so we can go from there in the other direction in my car.  M1, my other aunt is going 3 hours out of her way to pick up her grand daughter.  I am glad the grand daughter wants to come (she has come before when her cousins have come), but I am glad I don't have to add an extra 3 hours today and 3 hours sunday to my drive, because I am tired.  They probably won't get to RH until midnight.  Plus, I will have quite a few things to do Sunday to get ready for another 50 hour week.  I had hoped we could all ride together, but it is out of my hands.  My 2 aunts (M1 and M2) both live in the city I currently live in.  They are my mother's sisters.  I don't like to drive at night if I don't have to and I get sleepy around 10pm.  My main thing about avoiding the extra 3 hours is that my cousin and her SIL will be there at around 6 or 7pm to my RH and I felt uncomfortable hosting with people just waiting for me in my house.  I want to get there, get unloaded.  Open the blinds, turn on the AC, turn on some lights, sweep out any dead bugs, God forbid.  When you don't live full time in a house, there is the constant battle with bugs.  It is a pain.  We also have some issues with mildew from the house being shut up so tight and not enough air movement.  I feel really uncomfortable having guests get there before I do.  And not by a little while, by hours.  My cousin and I are close enough, I don't worry about that.  But I have never met her SIL and my cousin has only been to my house once.  I am sure I will be on the phone with her trying to direct her in.  I don't want to be driving through the hilly terrain in the dark with 3 women in the car, perhaps talking with each other. 

I am bringing everyone a pint of my apple butter and the pie I froze.  I packed it in ice in my car while I work 8 hours today.  I am currently  waiting on a project.  I hope this day goes by fast.  The sun is coming up and I am enjoying my nice hot tea.  I am excited about the weekend, but as a host, I always worry will everything run smoothly and will people have a nice time.  I also worry about who has to sleep on the sofa bed, because I know it is not the most comfortable.  But, it is nice to enjoy the fall with some women in my family who mean the world to me.  After our mom passed away, her sisters enjoy an even more important part of my life and I know my sister D3 feels the same way. 

I am also excited to be bringing 2 crockpots that I can't use to my neice and nephew, a 3 drawer plastic storage unit, and 2 Halloween tubs of decorations for them to take and use/enjoy.  More stuff out of my CH.  Win win!  I sold a pair of boots and a nice leather jacket this past week that I have been trying to sell for 6 months.  I put that money in savings.  I paid my personal property taxes last week in the RH state ($600+).  And my credit card balance was empty until my Sam's run last night (ouch).  It just occurred to me that the $200 cash I stashed at CH I totally forgot.  Oh well, I have $50 cash on me and  cash stashed at RH, so I should be fine!  I am buying nothing at the craft fair (Friday) or the shopping center (Saturday)...unless it is a big metal state mascot to put on our barn (my husband calls it barn, I call it a shed).  I have debated making one cut out of particle board - I could save prob 75%, but my husband nor I have ever used a jig saw...stay tuned on that one!

Have a great 3rd weekend of October fall weekend!  Enjoy your friends, family, traditions, sunshine, leaves, banana bread, apple butter, or pumpkin anything!  See you next week.

Death

What a light subject.  I lost my mom (DLM) at a fairly young age.  I was 24.  She was only 47.  She lived for about 12 to 13 months after the diagnosis.  I had just moved 600 miles away to another state.  3 weeks after I relocated to another state, we learned about my mom's cancer.  My boyfriend, who was diagnosed the previous December with cancer.  He was 29.  My beloved late husband.  We got married in 1991.  More on DLM and BLH in other posts, I am sure.  There is a LOT to unpack there.
 

My father (F) died just 3 years ago.  F was devastated when DLM died.  I worried a lot about F while I was working in a diff state, 600+ miles away, dealing with BLH cancer.  But, F remarried soon.  To C (crazy).  C was crazy, but not mean.  Just crazy and selfish.  She took half of what 1)  my dad and my mother had worked 30 years together to build.  She and F had a bumpy marriage, surprise.  Enough about C.  If I come back here, it will be because of how F let this all happen.  Not because of C.  C was opportunistic.
 

Eventually my husband (BLH) passed away, I was 26.  2 years to the month after my mom passed.  That was the closest I ever was to F, when he supported me after losing BLH.  He and my dear grandmother came to my home in another state and helped me through the hospital, the dying and the memorial, funeral and burial.  They were very supportive of me. 

Looking back, I know how hard this must have been for them, both of them also being widowed.  And they loved BLH, he was a GREAT guy.  Plus, I have always been very close to my DGM. 

Not too long after that, F and C parted ways.  F eventually married A.  A was 3 years older than I.  But my DGM and my sister and I were hopeful that F had found someone to make him happy.  Fast forward about 20 years later and F is on his death bed from cancer.  By now, A has made it clear to DG, D3 and I that she does not like us. 

Over the years, once my DGM became too old to host holidays, we stopped getting together.  My sister and I each lived in different states.  DGM lived in same city as F and A.  A said to my DGM that A hated having people in her home.  Told us she did not want to exchange gifts and once got furious when I bought my sister a gift, but not buy A's daughter.  Over the years when A would be mean to my sister and my DG, I would speak up.  A and F have a boy.  His only boy.  I tried to get to know my half brother, but it was hard since he is 30 years younger than me.  Most of this, I took in stride, understanding that A just wanted to be a family with F and not have 2 young women barely younger than herself as her "instant family".  But when A was mean to my DGM and sister, I spoke up.  It affect my relationship with F.  The tipping point was when my F and A starting taking money from DGM. 

I had enough.  DGM was selective in what she would share with me, knowing my relationship with F was already strained.  Eventually, it started coming out because DGM got older and more frail and it began to take a toll on her.  By this time, I could not longer tolerate the casual once or twice breazy phone conversations F tried to initiate with me, knowing what he was doing to his own mother.  So, I told F I could not just go on like this, casually speaking once a year and meeting once a year at a restaurant for Christmas, usu in January.  I called F to tell A to stop putting my DGM in the middle.  If they wanted to ask questions about me, then call me.  Period.  I was not going to play that game.
 

I did not have a big falling out with F.  I just told him that when I came to town to see DGM, I would not be continuing to make attempts to see him because it was too painful for me.  I was worried about DGM and how they were treating her.  So, in the new technological age of 2012 I unfriended F on FB!  Very anticlimactic.  It was like pulling off a bandaid for me.  Quick and clean.  My sister, D3 wisely left the door cracked open. 
 

Anyway, the reason all this came up in my mind is a relationship in my life now with F's sister, my aunt (A1).  A1 sort of went along with F and A, using DGM's resources.  I worry a lot about 1)  whether DGM will have enough resources at the end and 2) her state of mind knowing how her kids have acted and 3)  her state of mind already thinking she has lived too long and if she was dead, then they would have received their inheritance.  I have tried to relay this end of life message to A1.  This past weekend, I was a little more direct. 
 

I know these things to be true because when F was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, I decided I could not let him die without making amends.  For my sake and DGM sake.  So, I called him.  I went to see him about a week after he was diagnosed.  We had some casual catching up to do and I just tried to smooth things over, be positive and helpful.  It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. 

DH encouraged this truce.  So, even while the dependence on my DGM intensified, I was supportive of her helping her son.  As long as she felt like she could afford it, I was on board.  Then, after about 8 months, F stopped treatment.  The request for money became a request for part of her estate, now, before my dad passed.  DGM finally had to say no.  I enlisted my DH to get involved.  A had always liked DH.  DH is a nice, tall, handsome man.  DH is quiet and thoughtful.  DH used to be a police.  DH knows how to exert an air of authority.  DH knows how to calm emotional family situations.  A trusted him. 

DH and I called a meeting with A, as F lay dying and my DGM was sick with worry.   DH told A that she needed to "man" up and assure her dying husband that she and AJ (their son) would survive without him.  That F lived a good life and left a wonderful legacy of a son and they would miss him - but they would survive.  She assured DH that she had told F as much.  DH explained to her that F had told me and his mother that he was afraid for A and AJ. She tried to deny again, but then she admitted that she was indeed scared she would lose the house and would have to move and she did not want to.  She wanted AJ to be able to stay in the same home after his father died.  She worried how AJ would pay for college.  She admitted that they all figured DGM would have died and left money for them to pay off their house and pay for AJs college.  And she cried and agreed that she would try harder to reassure F.  It was only in the subsequent moments of reflection that DH and I recounted this strange conversation and realized the gravity of the admissions A made.  To this day, we still marvel at how selfish and weak A was, as we tried to teach her how to support a dying loved one.
 

I am now in the stages of navigating a similar message with DGM daughter.  A woman in her late 70's.  A 70 year old woman who expects others to help her.  I recently helped her.  I don't feel used, but I feel tired.  And blessed. 

Because the F that I saw who let his values become negotiable, is the same F who taught me my work ethic.  I guess it was more my mom who taught me the value of a dollar.