MONEY. I never forget for one day just how much I despise having to deal with money. I hate that I have to work for it, and that I can't get the things I need to live unless I have it. I don't like the effects that money has on people, and I loathe the semi-competitive and resentful things that money makes people feel.
Mostly I detest the vast amounts of time I have to spend every hour, day, month and year thinking about money. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the instant I need something, a little accountant pops up with an adding machine, estimating a price tag, and informing me that no, I can't afford that today, or yes I can afford it. Then a miniature inventory demon rifles about and remembers where the money is located. Is is in my purse? In the checkbook? Do I need to go to an ATM, or the bank? Is it time to crawl around and pick up the change from the floor of the car? Must I pull the evil plastic from my pocket and sign more of my life away to paying them back later?
Those are just the little choices. Right now I'm making big choices. Where to apply for a mortage; how to refinance my house. My attention is split between seething about Alan Greenspan (who is at fault for the fact that interest rates are almost a full percent higher this year then they were last year) and computing monthly payment estimates. How much screwing by a bank can I afford? Can I let them rape me at 9 percent, or do I need to keep hitting the pavement until I get that desireable Michigan average 8.2? Speaking of which, why is it that Michigan is 44th in the nation for mortgage interest rates? For fuck's sake, it's not like it costs so much more for National City to make a loan in Michigan than it does for them to make one in Ohio.
All of this stuff has direct ramifications to my life. If I do a good job getting a mortgage now, I won't have to do it again in a couple of years to try to drop the rate. I'll also have a lower payment than I'm making now, which is very desireable indeed. I'm living exactly at break-even right now, thanks to the recent unexplained alien overthrow of our precious petroleum industry. That means I have no spending money except what I can make at the Store, and there are many projects sitting around waiting for some financial attention. Even $50 a month less on the house payment would help a lot.
Especially since the magic house assessor fairy has decided my house is suddenly worth a lot more than it was last year; subsequently I'm unexpectedly paying a lot more for insurance.
I'f I haven't bored you enough with money, here's the next step. I'm also desperately seeking a way to escape the aliens who must have taken over all the big companies in the petroleum industry. They're sucking away almost $300 per month in gas money right now. That's WAY WAY WAY more than I can afford. Basically, my clothing budget, my grocery budget, my 1 book and 1 CD per month, and the money I'm supposed to be saving to fix up my house are all going rapidly in my fuel intake and out my tailpipe. (It must be aliens, since the government can find no reasonable explaination.)
Economists like to try to soothe me by saying, "Prices will drop back down in early August," but they said that about early June, too, and I was unimpressed. In my own limited experience, people have woefully short memories about this sort of thing. I think everyone will be so relieved now that gas has gone back down below $2 per gallon (for regular unl.) that the pressure will come off the oil companies, and we won't see a price I consider reasonable ever again.
No, I'm usually not a pessimist. In this case I'm remembering my favorite candy bar, as an example. It used to cost 50 cents, all the time. Then the candy company suddely raised it to 90 with no explaination. People were thrilled when it went back down to 69 cents, but I haven't seen 50 cents since. Now that they know people will pay for that damn 90 cent candy-bar gas, greed will take over, and people like me will be forced to pay it.
I'd boycott gas altogether, but I'm not in a position to just stop driving my car, as I would like to. There's no way I can ride a bike to work every day (if I had one,) it's just too far away. In order to earn money, it's necessary that I commute, and in my position description it states that I have to be willing to drive at work, too. I'm *required* to use gasoline products.
I looked into the electric powered cars, but I can't afford one.
Thus I am forced to very seriously consider trading in my minivan and cutting my losses. It means doing story problem after story problem, trying to get a handle on the arithmetic. I can't afford a $370 car payment and $300 per month in gas that I'm currently putting out. How to cut costs? The van isn't worth as much as I owe on it... but even so, I could buy a brand new Honda Accord LX PLUS the $3000 or so bite-in-the-ass from my minivan, and STILL save a ton of money, thanks to the alien fleet. The Honda gets 31 MPG, the minivan gets more like 22; so at $2 per gallon, the Honda costs about 6.4 cents per mile to drive, whereas the van costs 9.1 cents per mile. The story problem continues. I drive about 3000 miles per month, so that would be $273.00 in gas in the van, compared with $192 in the Honda. I figure my monthly car payment would drop a little or stay about the same, but I'd be paying about $81 (conservatively) less per month in gas.
My credit rating's also improved, which knocks the monthly payment for the Honda down to about $80 less than I was paying for the van. So far that's $161 per month cut out of the monthly payments... then whatever I get for refinancing the house (probably another $50 per month less).
It's a little better, but not much. I hate money. Particularly because it means that I can have $161 worth of groceries if I give up driving my much-beloved, comfortable, reliable, fun minivan. It's not an attractive choice to be making.
Well at least I can trust Hondas. They're good. I'm too much of a coward to buy practically any other car. Burn crosses on my lawn if you like. I've got homeowner's insurance.
Blech.
On a positive non-financial note, Forest and I have spent a bit of time resting and recuperating from Saturday's bus-hitting episodes. Monday night we went to Tae Kwon Do to find Master Kim tickled at our successes. He doesn't much care how we do in sparring, but he's always pleased to hear his students are placing well in forms competition. I was sort of embarrassed and somewhat pleased to hear Forest tell everyone about my one great punch. He's proud of that, and I am, too, I guess. It's odd to have my sweety be so proud of me, but I like it.
I spent a half hour of our first Monday class in the hallway with a student whose life reminds me a lot of mine, 8 years ago. She's living on her own, trying to put herself through school, and feeling like everyone can push her around because she doesn't have any money. (Yet another reason I hate money. People can push you around if you don't have it.) Her landlord was making threats and so on, and she's scared, because she wants to pay her bills and can't. I've been there; too often. I tried really hard to think of good advice, and to just be comforting, but I know that she's screwed until she can stand up and wave big fists of money at people and tell them to piss off. That's the way our society works, particularly for young, single people who don't have their parents to rely on.
I also know how worthless it makes you feel, and how fast you lose self-respect when you can't hold up your end of your own fate; when you can't keep a roof over your own head or help out your friends when they need you.
But I didn't say these things to her. Instead I told her how to get an emergency loan from the college, and told her how to get her slumlord busted by the housing authority. It's amazing the things I've learned in the past few years with a little perspective.
Tuesday at lunchtime that same student was at the Store visiting, and much happier, having paid the landlord and gained some sort of control of her own situation. I'm glad for her; I was worried.
Tuesday night after work Forest and I went swimming for a while; the water was perfect, and we both enjoy splashing around, playing, sitting on the bottom, diving, and the works. We're like kids who've found a great toy. Actually, as a couple we aren't much for sitting still. There are too many things we like to do together that are active. When we first got together, before we discovered these other things, we'd go for long walks, or dance around our house for hours on end; just because we needed to move. Now we get a lot of that out of our systems in class, but we still like to go hiking, swim a lot, and bat each other around whenever we feel like it. I think it's a nice healthy contribution to our relationship as a whole.
Tonight's test night for Master Kim. Forest's going to test on Keumgang (sp?), which is his 2nd Dan form. It should be fun to watch. I've got tae guks 5 and 6 to do, which I think will go pretty well. I worked hard on them on Monday, and think I can do them without hesitation. Tae guk 5 is particularly cool; it's full of elbow strikes and has a couple of interesting sidekicks in it.
I'm pleased that Cory and Brian from last semester have stuck around, so I have someone my rank to work on forms with. Our class has two or three white belts, a dozen yellow belts, three greens (Cory, Brian and I), one blue, one brown, and Forest. I feel bad for the blue and brown belts. They are completely on their own when it's practice-time.
Last night Forest and I discovered the next comical thing in our relationship, and thankfully saved ourselves some egregious future errors. We had been talking about how we "should" so something, and agreed that we ought to. So I went out and did it. When I told him about it, he was shocked that I didn't wait and let him contribute. I thought we had agreed to do it! So, from now on, when we agree we should do something, we hold off on it until we agree we WILL do something. And I'll learn to be a more patient person in yet another way.
It's a really good thing, because we'd agreed that we should really get our porch contracted out, and I almost ran out and did it yesterday. Happily, I didn't, and priorities are shifting to cars, loans, and other crap.
Other shoulds that we agree on but don't do:
We should replace our kitchen floor, shower enclosure, and tub
We should save on gas money by driving the more fuel efficient of our cars
We should eat out less
We should see our friends more
We should see our families more
We should make Kirstin clean her room rather than taking her out for fun when it's dirty
We should install air conditioning.
We should plant a bunch of flowers in our front yard.
We should go to bed earlier
We should replace our porch and install eavestroughs
We should get up earlier in the morning
We should work out every morning before work
We should put reserve money in the bank and not touch it unless there's an emergency
We should see American Beauty, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Anna and the King and a zillion other movies
We should get Taekwondo club a faculty advisor
We should both finish our degrees
My my, that's quite a list, isn't it? Just think what happy, healthy, productive people we would be if we did all of that. (Well, except for the three days we'd have to spend watching movies.) Then again, look at what happy, healthy, productive people we are now! We're both the happiest we've ever been, and the healthiest we've been in a long time. We're both exactly breaking even, which means we aren't spending more than we make, and that's a good thing. That's nearly productivity. We get our house cleaned, and our laundry gets done, and our lawn gets mowed.
We really are doing very well. The 'shoulds' on the list can wait, and we will get around to them when we can, one at a time. I'll learn to not let them bother me.
