What to do?

The local bank I chose (bank account number three since moving here) was bought out.  So, my free checking, once again, is no longer going to be free.  The hunt for another bank that has free checking begins ... once again.  I have until April 24th to open a new account and close my now-no-longer-free-local-checking-account.  SIGH.  I have to fetch prescriptions on Friday, so I would like to see if I can find something then.

Last month, I ran out of sour cream.  I also ran out of chicken, sort of, since the only chicken I had left was earmarked for a batch of chipotle chicken chili.  So, when I went to buy groceries last week, I sort of went nuts over chicken.  I have enough chicken to feed several meals to Celia's, Mary's, Becky's, and Marie's families.  Many meals.  However, since it is technically impossible to have too much sour cream, I will only note that I have a sufficiency for all the spicy Dr Pepper pulled pork tacos and chipotle chicken chili I shall be consuming between now and the next budget cycle.

The extra chicken is putting a bit of a damper on my goal to have fresh things all throughout the budget cycle.  I could, legitimately move the cost of one (or more) of the packages into next month, but I am trying really hard not to fudge with this budgeting stuff.  So, I have been reading lots and lots and lots of articles about budgeting and slimming down expenditures.  I mean, it is not as if I am a stranger to budgeting.  I had to do a lot of that as a communications manager and I have never been a spend thrift in my personal finances.  But this ... life of mine ... is hard.  Impossible.

I found this interesting article by LearnVest regarding the 50/20/30 Rule.  This is a budgeting approach that is new to me.  Basically, no more than 50% of your expenses should go to your basic needs (shelter, food, utilities), 20% should go to your financial priorities, and 30% to your lifestyle, which includes things like cellphones, cable, and Internet, as well as things such as entertainment and vacations.  I see lots of information about how housing should be no more than 30% of our budget—that's HUD's standard—but I think that, too often, that as seen as a standard, rather than a high end number.  Start adding the other essentials to that 30% threshold and your basic needs can eat up well over 50% of your budget.  That really is one of the main factors for the housing crisis; just because you can afford a mortgage that is $1,700 a month according to the bank's math, it does not mean that you should actually have a $1,700 mortgage.

The other thing that I really liked about the brief article, even though it is presented by an investment company, is the 20% is designated toward financial priorities, including retirement, savings, and big ticket items you would like to purchase.  Fiscal literacy is sorely lacking in our education system.  And I suspect many might find that number rather excessive, especially since, in my past jobs, trying to help employees see the value of a 100% match to a 3% retirement deduction was like pulling teeth.  Worse, really.  Few were willing to even have 3% of their pre-tax salary set aside; few could see the great benefit of the match.  I believe that the best way to work on your financial goals is to have the funds re-directed before you get your paycheck.  What you don't see, you won't think about spending.  With the prevalence of electronic paychecks, it is an easy thing to have your paycheck divided between a checking and a savings account, after you have made your retirement deductions, too!

Of course, for me, the whole 50/20/30 goes out the window because of my medical expenses, which have been between 40-50% of my income.  SIGH.  However, my long-term goal is to, barring hospitalizations, find a way to live on 80% of the disability income in preparation for possible cuts beginning in 2016, when insolvency is projected to begin.  So, if you look at it that way, the 20% I am trying to learn to live without is my financial priority.

Anyway, even though I am barely into this month's budget cycle, with 23 days to go, I am projecting that I will meet that reduced goal of $750 in the multiple category budget line easily.  Now, I have just $40 left in grocery funds, of which at least $7 will need to go to milk.  Maybe $10.  So, I am not sure how I can meet my goal of having a Grannie Smith apple each day (I currently have six left) and fresh vegetables each week.  But I actually still have $140 of that grouped category left, even with the prescriptions left in the month still to be purchased.  That is huge, given that I paid my car registration this month.

Of course, then you need to say, "Wait, Myrtle, remember the flood!"  Yes, well, okay.  I would not be surprised if all of that $140 is eaten up by the water bill.  Firewood Man didn't know about the flood and he came by to power wash the sidewalks to clean up after his gutter pipe extension work.  They look like the dentist visited, which is just lovely to me, but that water bill is going to be mammoth!

Today, I took down some of the stew jars that I had stashed in my kitchen freezer down to the basement, to swap them with a mixture of meal options to bring back upstairs.  As much as I sniff, I smell no water, which is an immense relief to me.  However, all the photos I had hung up are wrinkled, ruined.  I won't be reprinting them and can still savor why I chose them in the first place, but the wrinkles are a reminder of my colossal memory fail.  SIGH.

Yet, whilst I was down there, I was momentarily staggered looking at the rather full freezer.  Even though I have been doing all the cooking and baking and dough-ball-making and freezing, I struggle to wrap my mind around how much my life has changed in such a short period of time.  I mean, I about near panicked, coming home from the store, because I had not purchased any butter.  I feel as if I am nearly out of butter.  Dangerously low.  However, if you add up what is in both freezers and my refrigerator, I have 7 sticks of regular butter and two slabs of European butter.  One of those sticks is ear-marked for another batch of black-eyed peas, but the remaining six sticks of butter is not exactly "nearly out of butter."  This is especially true if you take into consideration that I had a long talk without myself about not doing any more baking until I eat down the eight different desserts filling up one and a half shelves of my kitchen freezer, as well as the three different types of muffins.

It is strange to me to have such an abundance of tastiness.  It is also strange to me to think that, should a veritable hoard of visitors descend upon me, I could feed them all from my freezer.  I could, in fact, try out two of the new beef recipes I have been hankering to make since those cuts were purchased in February.  Especially ... especially since I can now grill without worrying about blinding snow storms or sub-zero temperatures.

The point is, I really don't have any need for much cooking in April.  Nor is there any area in my home needing organizing or reducing.  Whilst I had a fire tonight, even if I were not nearing the end of the last rank of wood, the weather is definitely getting warmer.  What am I to do?  What am I to do with managing those pesky emotions I do not understand?

When Firewood Man was here, we talked about making the form for the raised bed so that I can grow herbs that my beloved puppy dog cannot "water."  With the first great rain due to start falling today (it did not), I hauled three bags of mulch up to the fern bed—where Tim had to dig to replace the gutter pipe extensions—to prevent dirt running off onto the sidewalks.  Then, thinking about all that ground cover soon to explode in my targeted herb bed, I decided to start working on digging out the snow on the mountain roots.

Amos tried to be helpful.  He kept watering the bed to keep the ground loose.

If you have never seen snow on the mountain roots, you will most likely not be able to grasp the enormity of the task.

Think spaghetti.  Lots and lots of spaghetti that is near impossible to remove.  Any little piece left will grow into another plant.  And it grows very, very, very deep.  From the photo, you might also surmise that I might possibly have finished my gardening in the dark.  Yep, I was wearing my headlamp.

Since the rain held off its arrival, I snapped a picture of the bed today.  I dug down eight inches.  Believe me, after the rain, I guarantee that I will see new sprouts of the ground cover.  Tim talked about putting down landscaping cloth before setting the frame in place, but the pernicious nature of the ground cover made me want to create the best foundation possible.

Plus, I wanted to work out some upsettedness.

You might also see one of the other dilemmas with the bed in the photo.  The bed narrows from top to bottom.  I believe that it will make for a better visual presentation if the frame follows both the fence and the sidewalk.  However, that will make for more of a parallelogram rather than a rectangle ... if I am remember my math terms correctly.  Or maybe some sort of canted trapezoid?  Whatever it will be it will not be even and equal.  If I follow the two larger visual markers.

What to do about that?

Long into the evening, I sat on the ground, digging my fingers into the soil, pulling out the spaghetti roots bit by bit.  I shoveled the entire bed, but I still need to 1) cut along the entire length of the sidewalk and 2) dig at least another six inches.  However, my evening served as an entire growing seasons worth of labor for me.  In other words, that was enough labor for me.  It is my most fervent hope that once the plants are in, all I will have to do is water them.

Well, I will have to stain the wood.

Should I mention that Tim offered some alpaca droppings to use in lieu of compost when mixing up the soil?  Free things are great.  But do I really want alpaca manure?  The bed is already filled with wonderful soil.  I would like to dig out a foot's worth, fill in the trench with the cheapest top soil possible, and then fill the new frame with what I dug out.  But can you imagine me doing all that work?  Plus, where would one put all the soil during the exchange?

If cooking and organizing and gardening and fires are out, what am I to do in times of upsettedness?


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!