Bloomberg says home prices will go down 10%

Thanks to the Housing Bubble blog, I came across this news. Mayor Bloomberg has predicted that NYC housing prices will decline by 10% over the next few years. I can't wait to see what kind of response this will get in the media.
I suppose there are all sorts of reasons why he might want to play up a gloomy scenario so people will be prepared for shortfalls in tax revenues. But given how much prices have gone up, a 10% decline over a few years seems quite reasonable.
I do have my moments of doubt (and today would be one of them, with this news right on the heels of another rate hike!) about my own purchase-in-progress, wondering if I should have just forced myself to wait a couple more years to buy. But I still think the place I'm buying is the best deal I've seen so far for an apartment that meets my criteria. If all goes according to plan, I can ride out a price decline. If all goes according to my dreams, in about 5 years, prices will have crashed dramatically, I'll have gotten a few raises, I'll have saved enough cash for another downpayment, and I'll be able to rent out one place at a profit and buy another! But plans and dreams are one thing, real life is another. Pass the Maalox, will ya?

It's W-2 time!

Don't forget to check yours carefully-- and I mean really carefully!
Last year, mine didn't match my final paycheck and I went over the numbers repeatedly until I thought I had found the answer-- an error in whether or not they were showing my transit pass deductions as reducing my taxable income, due to switching systems mid-year. I spoke to HR and they agreed that there seemed to be a problem. Soon afterwards, they sent out an email to the whole company telling everyone who used the transit pass deduction that their W-2s were wrong and would have to be reissued. But then a few days after that, they retracted it and said the W-2s were actually fine. I did the math on mine yet again and finally figured out that it was right after all.
So double-, triple- and quadruple-check your W-2, if you want to avoid throwing your whole company into an uproar like I did!

Other Planets

Within the past 3 days, I experienced two of them. One was Saturn—the other was the Upper East Side.
Last weekend, I told you how I’d been playing ping pong in a basement Village dive. It was a little funky, a little grungy… not what you’d call upscale. This weekend, my plans took me to the Upper East Side, which feels like a whole different world.
First, I picked up my friend at the apartment where she was staying, in a luxury high-rise post-war building. The apartment was a studio at least 3 times the size of mine, and a bargain at about $2,000 a month, rent-stabilized. Unfortunately the person who lives there really can’t afford it because although she employs a cleaning lady and eats out every night, she makes less than $40,000 a year, and won't ask her wealthy family to help her pay her credit card debts—I didn’t know whether to see that as a sign of hope amid the dysfunction. But I think it is driven by wimpiness rather than responsible independence.
For dinner, we managed to eat cheap by finding a BYOB Afghan restaurant, where entrees were about $11-12 including salad. (Tip from the wine shop: Riesling is an excellent choice with Afghan food.) Afterwards, we went for a little walk to get dessert. When you stroll along Lexington Ave. in the 70s, you can get this feeling that money is just in the air, and this is not even the ritziest zone up there. Lots of elegant boutiques and antique shops and restaurants—it’s hard to say why it feels wealthier than, say, Brooklyn Heights, but it just does. We ended up at a very crowded French bakery & chocolate shop called Payard. Just staring in the windows would be fun—they’re probably especially colorful now because of Valentine’s Day but I’m sure it's always a show. We had some delicious little meringues and a yummy éclair. It was probably the best éclair I’ve ever had—but it was probably the first time I ever paid $6 for an éclair. All things considered, though, Payard is not that much more expensive than any other café if you’re just having coffee and pastries—but I think a box of chocolates could do you some serious damage.
The next night, I went out with a different friend in Brooklyn, and had another rich and chocolatey dessert—it cost less but was not as satisfying as the éclair. There are two relatively new places that have opened in Park Slope, both of which specialize in chocolate and wine. So far, I think the Chocolate Room on 5th Ave. is much better than Cocoa Bar on 7th Ave. But I may have to go back to both of them quite a few times to make a proper determination.

As for Saturn? There was a guy on 7th Ave. with a telescope. We saw him on our way to dinner, and on the way back decided we had to stop and join the line to take a peek. I was as excited as a little kid when I looked through the eyepiece and saw Saturn and all its rings, small but clear as anything. My friend's take on the subject? “That guy said he’d been standing out there for 4 hours letting people look through his telescope. I would have charged them a buck...”

The Wine Contest Winner is...

Ladies and Gentlemen, please congratulate financial paragon and guesser extraordinaire HAZZARD, of Everybody Loves Your Money! He has won the wine cork guessing contest, in which readers were invited to guess how much money I spent on liquor last year based on a photo of my cork collection. (A good bonus question would have been to estimate what percentage of Portugal's GDP is represented by my cork collection.)
Hazzard's guess of $750 was almost dead-on with my "Dining:Liquor" line in Quicken, which was $754.03. However, I realized that the contest didn't specify whether I just meant wine bought for home consumption, which is mainly what that line covers, so I also went through my "Dining:Dinner" transactions and counted up the ones where I most likely included a glass or two of wine. From that I came up with approximately 36 glasses of wine, at an average cost, probably, of $7, bringing my total cost of booze to $1006.03. Hazzard was still the closest guesser. Our runner-up, by both reckonings, would be the lovely and talented Caitlin of Clutter2Cash. The guesses ranged from Bitty's $186 to Trip's $2500. Bitty, thank you for your vote of confidence in my frugality and temperance, and I apologize if I've terribly disappointed you. And Trip, wow, you must think I am a real partier! To you as well I apologize if I have destroyed any image you may have had of me as a champagne-swilling woman about town. The truth that seems to have emerged is that I drink (or at least pay for) on average about 2 bottles of wine per week, as well as about 3 glasses of wine in restaurants per month. This makes sense, as I've been trying to cut back on dinners out and often cook at home with a couple of my friends rather than going to restaurants.
Thank you all for playing! I will try to have some more contests in the future so everyone can have another shot at the fabulous prize which Hazzard will be enjoying for the next week: that glittering headline reading "Hazzard is wicked awesome!" Maybe to mix things up a bit next time I'll offer a chance to win "[your name here] is peachy keen!" or "[your name here] is the balls!" Stay tuned!

Mozart

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I'm no classical music expert but as composers go, I can't think of any other example whose finances were such a notable part of his life story!
Mozart's father apparently made quite a bit of money from his son's performances as a child prodigy. And later in life, of course, Mozart is well known to have lived beyond his means. For many of his works, he was paid little or no money, and he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. If it's not quite true that he died penniless, he certainly did have a lot of problems with debt throughout his life.
Musical genius, yes. Personal finance genius, no. But of course we wouldn't be remembering him today if he'd spent his time with his checkbook instead of his piano...

The Money Battles of the Sexes

The comments on the subway remark/ diamond ring story have brought up lots of interesting issues that deserve a post of their own!
Here's a few of my thoughts, and let's hear yours!

Some people have a double standard about equality between the sexes: they believe women should get equal pay for equal work, but they think men are cheap if they don't pay for dates. Some men would love to share the costs of a date-- others never let a woman pay even if she offers. Some women feel that letting men always pay puts them in an uncomfortably passive role. Other women like to feel that they are being taken care of.

On average, women are still paid less than men.

Women tend to bear more of the burden of housework and childcare, even when both husband and wife work full time. (But men and women have different perceptions about how well they share the housework!) How does this relate to money matters?

What kind of messages do children get? Boys get the message that they will have to be responsible for themselves and their families in the future. Girls have traditionally gotten the message that they must find a husband who is a good provider. Even today, girls may get the message that they should have a career and take care of themselves, but they are unlikely to be told they should prepare to be the main breadwinner in a family.

There have been some recent articles about a growing trend among young women at Ivy League colleges who despite being smart, ambitious and ideally positioned for long-term career success, say they plan to quit their jobs to be stay-at-home moms.

I mentioned in the previous post that among my friends, couples where the women out-earn the men happen to be more common than those where men out-earn the women. Is this a total fluke? Is it something that is more common than people think? Do people not want to admit they have this kind of relationship? If so, who's more embarrassed about it, the woman or the man?

Have at it, folks...

Wine Tips and an exciting CONTEST!!!

Sound Money Tips just posted some good pointers on shopping for wine. I have to qualify one of them: #6 says you shouldn't pour a half empty bottle down the drain. (Well of course not! What a shame that would be!) But rather than just corking up the bottle and putting it in the fridge, it's better to keep a few half-bottles (375ml) around the house and transfer it to one of those. That way there will be less air in the bottle with the wine, and it will keep better.

Now, for a bit of interactive fun, here's a contest for you! The photo above is of all the corks I have collected from approximately 5 1/2 years of home wine consumption. I tend to buy pretty cheap wines, usually under $10, maybe up to $15 for a special treat. So the question is, how much did I spend on liquor in 2005? You can post your guesses in the comments, and whoever comes closest to the actual number will receive a fabulous prize! I will post a special headline at the top of my blog that says "[your name here] is wicked awesome!" with a link to your blog*, if you have one, and I'll leave it there for one full week! Now I expect that the stampede of people trying to claim this incredible prize may temporarily overwhelm Blogger's servers, so if you can't get through right away, just keep trying and don't despair. Good luck, and may the best drunkard responsible drinker win!

*I reserve the right to reject any porn sites!

($*%&(@$* Quicken

Wow, I almost deleted this email without reading it, but it's a good thing I didn't.



This sucks! I have become totally addicted to downloading my credit card transactions and stock prices!
I hate when software companies do things like this. I was perfectly happy using my current version of Quicken. Now I am going to have to read all this fine print and see what it will take to upgrade. And it's going to cost me $50!

Overheard on the Subway

On my commute this morning, a man who was about to get off the train said to a young woman who had been sitting across from him "I just have to tell you, that is a really nice rock! You got yourself a big sucker!"
The woman had an iPod on so she might not have heard him properly, and she just responded with a slightly confused smile. I didn't get a chance to see the rock in question, but I kept wondering, just how big was it? And what did he mean by the "sucker" remark? Did he mean the ring itself was a "big sucker?" But the way he said it sounded like he meant her husband/fiancé was a sucker for spending so much on her! And if that was what he meant, why would he say something so insulting, implying that she wasn't worth it? And that she "got" him, i.e. snagged a guy with money. She was an attractive woman, and for all anyone could know, also the nicest person on earth, smart, and wealthy herself. Why wouldn't he think of it as someone snagging her?

And why do people think that way about the rock itself? There is so much at stake for guys when it comes to buying engagement rings. If they try to skimp out, they'll be trashed by the bride's friends, if not the bride herself. Among women I know, even the most independent, progressive types seem to get a sinking feeling if the boyfriends they far out-earn don't drop some serious cash on the ring. (And when I say "out-earn" I'm talking about couples where the woman is a lawyer and the guy works at Starbucks.)

I don't think it all just comes down to pure status consciousness, though. I think that in some of the couples I've known and heard about, it comes down to a question of responsibility. If the woman is working at a high-powered job and the man is not, that can seem ok for a while. But if the couple starts to talk about getting married and having kids, the reality is that the woman will have to take at least a little time off from work. Ok, that may be paid time, and then the husband may be able to take over child care later, but what if something happens? What if the woman loses her job, or has health problems? If the guy is working at Starbucks because he's just procrastinating about figuring out what he really wants to do, the woman is going to feel like he's not taking the future seriously, and not seeing that he'll have the responsibility to take care of her and their children. This doesn't mean he has to run out and find a 6-figure job, but he'd better at least seem like he cares-- it's about the attitude more than the money itself.

Well, that is enough rambling on the topic... amazing how the most random subway comment can take on a life of its own!

Lottery analysis

If you don't play, you can't win...ok, makes sense. But still, does it make sense to play?

If you've been reading this blog long enough to have seen some of my real estate calculation spreadsheets, you know I am a big Excel junkie. So I was happy to discover this post by Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist, with some intriguing calculations on whether it's worth it to play the lottery. Make sure you read the comments and follow-up post too.

This weekend's cheap fun

I went out with a friend this weekend and stopped in at an old haunt of mine that I hadn't been to in a while. It's a kind of dive-y place on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, called Fat Cat. It used to be primarily a place to play pool. They had a great juke box, and allowed you to bring in your own liquor, so it was a relatively cheap place to hang out and drink. Well, of course things change. The last time I went there was a couple of years ago, with some business colleagues from Europe who were delighted to be going to a BYOB dive in the Village! But we were disappointed to discover that the several six packs we'd brought along were no longer welcome, as the place now had a liquor license. However, the bartender was really nice about it and let us drink our beer, and a mini-Olympics of pool was enjoyed by all (and won by Brits).
Fast forward to the present: Fat Cat is still kind of a dive, but now it's kind of a hipster-y dive. Half the pool tables are gone, they've increased the number of ping pong tables, and now there is a big lounge area up front where you can play chess, backgammon and Scrabble. The games are free if you're drinking, or $1 if you're not. They also have an internet cafe area, where web access is $4 an hour. Pool and ping pong still cost $6 per person per hour, at least on the weekends. They also have live jazz most nights of the week, which almost makes up for the fact that the jukebox is gone. And on Sundays you can play in a ping pong league all afternoon for only $9.
Anyway, this place is my idea of heaven, pretty much. I still think the bathrooms are a little yuck, and if you're a serious pool player you'll be annoyed that half the pool cues are falling apart, but otherwise... pool, ping pong, board games and alcohol, all in a relaxed, friendly environment, what more can you ask for.
Afterwards, my friend and I went to a nearby Thai restaurant for dinner. Total cost of the afternoon/evening, about $40 per person.
I just wish we'd been betting on ping pong-- I won 6 games out of 6!

New Year's Resolutions

Here's an interesting tidbit from the Sunday Business section in the NY Times...
According to an Experian-Gallup survey, a huge percentage of Americans resolve to reduce their credit card debt, despite the fact that overall credit card debt keeps rising to record levels.

Percentage of adults who claimed they were very or somewhat likely to do the following things in 2006:

Reduce their credit card debt: 84%
Check their credit score: 48%
Cut back their entertainment spending: 45%
Cut down on the number of credit cards they have: 35%

As the Times article so poetically puts it, "most resolutions, like winter itself, will be dissolved by the dancing sunlight of spring." Not to mention those tempting seasonal sales...

The Personal Finance Bestseller list

Yesterday I referred to the fact that the finance books you see on bestseller lists (such as the New York Times') might not actually be the ones that are selling the most copies. Here is a list I compiled of the personal finance books that actually sold the best in retail outlets last week (ending 1/15/06), according to Bookscan. (Even Bookscan isn't 100% accurate, but it gives you a pretty good idea.)
I took their overall Business bestseller list and edited out the titles on leadership, CEO biographies, and general economic books such as Freakonomics (which would have been #1 by a long shot.) I also removed one book called "Investing Money Market Funds" because it's no longer available according to Amazon, and was probably only on the list because of some kind of special remainder sale. I haven't sorted by hardcover vs. paperback, and I certainly can't be bothered to tell you where it ranked last week, how many weeks it's been on the bestseller list, etc., not on a Friday night.

So here it is:
#1: Jim Cramer's Real Money
#2: The Number
#3: The Little Book That Beats the Market
#4: Rich Dad, Poor Dad
#5: JK Lasser's Your Income Tax 2006
#6: The Total Money Makeover
#7: The Automatic Millionaire
#8: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
#9: The Ernst & Young Tax Guide 2006
#10: The Five Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me
#11: Smart & Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People
#12: The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke
#13: The Total Money Makeover Workbook
#14: The Richest Man in Babylon
#15: Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant

P.S. Loral Langemeier is nipping at their heels, with The Millionaire Maker only a couple hundred copies a week below Cashflow Quadrant!

No big surprises there, I guess! But I thought it would be a fun thing to look at. Also, I can't seem to blog about my own life much this week-- I've been so busy at work all I can think about is books!
Have a good weekend everyone.

A new bestseller!

To all of you who have been blogging about The Number, by Lee Eisenberg, your efforts have helped create a new bestseller. Saying exactly what bestseller list it's going to hit and when could get me in trouble, so I won't spill the beans in any more detail. But I do want to follow up on this with another post soon. I noticed that some finance books appear on the bestseller list you may see in a well-known newspaper, while others that may actually be selling more copies don't appear on the printed list, only in an online version. This kind of thing drives publishers crazy!

This may be the first bestseller personal finance book for which blogging has been a big part of the marketing campaign. I could be wrong about that, but it seems like the other books that have been on the lists lately are either things that have been around since way before blogging became so popular, or else they haven't been marketed by targeting personal finance blogs as reviewers. Am I wrong here? I haven't been blogging for all that long, so I may have missed something.

Festival of Frugality

Check out the Festival of Frugality at Clutter2Cash!

Fabulous Food from Frugal Females Folks: a blogger cookbook in progress

I've noticed that female personal finance bloggers have a tendency to post recipes for cheap eats, so here's a mini cookbook I've compiled from some that I've noticed recently. (Guys, if any of you have posted recipes that I've missed, let me know! But so far, I think I may have stumbled onto an interesting difference in how males and females think about ways to save money. 'Cause, you know, the little ladies are always barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen anyway-- NOT!)
[Updated 1/24/06 with the first recipe from a male blogger, Funny Munny, and 3/22/06 with one from Cap, our 2nd chef with the Y chromosome.]
I'll keep updating this with additional recipes as I find them and add a link to this post in the sidebar so people can check back for updates. If you have a good cheap recipe to share, let me know and I'll add it. If you can include information about the cost of the ingredients, even better! And actually, even recipes that don't necessary count as "cheap eats" are eligible, as any cooking at home is cheap if you compare it to eating out. You can post submissions in the comments or email them to me at openwallet1 [at] yahoo [dot com].
(Note: some of the posts I've linked to may just be about the experience of cooking a recipe that is not the author's own creation, but is linked to within the post.)

Appetizers and Soups
Mapgirl's Lentil Stew
Mapgirl's Sausage & Lentil Stew
Mapgirl's Jook (an Asian chicken & rice soup)
Caitlin's Kale & Kielbasa Soup
Caitlin's Hunkar Begendi (eggplant)
Baselle's Tomato Chickpea Soup
Mrs. Micah's Lentil, Sausage & Rice Soup

Main Courses
Boston Gal's Lazy Lady Lasagna
Funny Munny's Chicken Kiev & Carrot Apple Casserole
Boston Gal's Easy Curry Chicken & Rice
Caitlin's 6 Meals from a Costco Chicken
Baselle's Wisconsin Farmhouse Mac & Cheese
Claire's beans
Udandi's Chicken Enchiladas
Cap's Broccoli & Cheese (and Salmon)
Madame X's Frankenscampi
Poe's Chicken Salad
Kate's Vegetarian "Chicken" Quesadillas
English Major's Chicken tip
Mapgirl's Chicken Recipes
Trent's Chicken Casserole
Mei's Pasta Fazool a.k.a Pasta e Fagioli
Mei's Red Cabbage and Sweet Potato Curry
Mei's Feijoada
Mapgirl's Sheherd's Pie

Desserts
For some reason, I am having trouble finding dessert recipes! What, are we all on a diet or something?!? Please send dessert recipes, as the only one I know how to make is those cookies that come in a log. ("Buy log, hack into chunks, bake at 350 until a few of them aren't burnt. If that is too much trouble, just microwave the dough for 20 seconds and eat like pudding.")
The closest things I could come up with were these posts:
Boston Gal's tale of Banana Bread gone wrong
The Debt Defier on the cost of ingredients for Pecan Pie
Now I have some actual recipes:
Savvy Saver on Homemade Chocolate Syrup (as well as some other recipes for presumably non-edible items such as laundry detergent and drain declogger)
Kate Spills the Beans on Sugar Cookies
Wenchypoo's Watchagot Cake
Boston Gal's Apple Pie
Udandi's Cookie Pizza
Kate's Apple Cobbler
Domestika's Quick Fancy Desserts
Terri W.'s Banana Cookies

Condiments, Dressings & Miscellaneous
Caitlin makes Breadcrumbs
Madame X's Salad Dressing
Dawn's tips for dealing with hard brown sugar
Savvy Saver's Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
Terri W.'s variation on the Hillbilly Housewife's Brown Sugar Granola
Trent's Homemade Bread

Menu Plans
The Hillbilly Housewife's emergency menu plan that feeds 4-6 people for a week for only $45!
Stephanie Tries the Mega Menu Mailer


Cooking & Recipe Tips
Kitchen tips from Dawn
Frugal food tips from Trent
Get Rich Slowly on How to Feed Yourself for $15 a Week
English Major's Frugal Food Wrap-Up

Now all we need is for someone to do a "Julie & Julia" and write a blog about actually making all of these recipes!

An Enigma for the Future?

There is a neat book called Motel of the Mysteries, by David Macaulay. I thought it was long out of print, but even though it was published in 1979, it's still available on Amazon. If you're not familiar with the author, he has done a lot of wonderful books that explain, in detailed pen and ink drawings, things such as how the pyramids or a Gothic cathedral were built, or what you'll find underground in a city. Though most of his books are very factual, Motel of the Mysteries is quite different. It is a fanciful, but not far-fetched look at what might happen if an archeologist from thousands of years in the future excavated a late 20th century motel.
Basically, they misinterpret everything, thinking that toilet seats were some kind of headgear for a religious ritual, etc. It's an amusing way of making us question what we think we know about ancient civilizations.

The reason I was thinking about this was that I wondered if the checkbook will soon become obsolete. In a generation or two, will kids be as befuddled by checks as they are now by vinyl records, 8-track tapes and manual typewriters, to say nothing of items like washboards and butter churns? Online payments are becoming more and more popular for things that used to be paid by personal checks. Credit and ATM cards are accepted almost everywhere. I've read that in Japan, you can buy things from certain vending machines using your cellphone. And PayPal has made electronic funds transfers accessible to almost anyone.
Based on this, and on my unscientific findings in the recent "what's in your wallet" posts, you might also think that cash will soon be obsolte-- I'm not so sure about that. I think cash will be necessary and useful for a long time yet. But how often are checks really needed anymore?
I personally wrote exactly 26 checks in 2005. 12 of those were my rent checks, as I pay just an individual person, not a management company and I don't think I could set that up as an automatic e-payment with my bank.
The other 14 were as follows:
1 to attorney for condo purchase
1 to mortgage broker for application fee
6 for my French lessons, which I often just pay in cash
3 were transfers between banks-- I probably could have done this electronically, but might have had to pay a fee
2 were gifts sent to my grandmother
1 was a gift to my mother

This was down from 27 checks written in 2004 and 28 written in 2003. I was already paying most of my bills electronically by then, so I'd estimate that in 2002 and earlier, I was probably writing 40 or more checks a year.

Has anyone ever seen any statistics about the number of checks written each year? Are checkbook manufacturers going out of business? Will we all be trying to explain this to our great-grandchildren?

"Yes, Billy, people used to keep a little book of paper sheets that were sort of like play money, but you could turn it into real money by writing your name on it and handing to a person who sat behind a window!"
"And you had to write it down every time you gave someone one of the little pieces of paper? And sometimes you weren't sure how much money you had? That's weird, Grandma... hey, can you put $500 on my brain-imbedded credit chip so Tommy and me can go get Popsicles?"

Carnival of Personal Finance at Savvy Saver

You can find it here... lots of great stuff to read.

Cash, lending, polls...

My post the other day about wallet cash seems to have been very popular, with quite a few interesting comments about how much money people carry and why. The poll results surprised me, with most people voting for $20 and under.
Well, that means most of you will probably be horrified to hear that today I have $226.70 in my wallet. This was actually unintentional and resulted from a $175 loan being repaid to me in cash. What is it about a long-standing loan being repaid that makes it so awkward? The etiquette seems to be to pretend that it was no big deal and say "oh thanks" and stuff the money away as quickly as possible without counting it, even if you're inwardly thinking "thank God that's over with!"
I tend not to get into money-lending situations with friends or family. I think this was the largest amount I have ever loaned to a friend. I once lent my mother a larger amount-- I can't remember but I think it may have been $500 or $1000. I kind of blocked it out of my mind because I knew I wouldn't get it back and I never did. She asked me for money a second time some years later and I said no, because it was an amount I couldn't comfortably spare. I also thought she was inappropriately asking me to take sides, as she wanted the money for a lawyer and an apartment, so she could divorce my dad! I still have some doubts about that one-- it's not like she needed to get out of an abusive situation but as my parents had a pretty traditional marriage, she didn't have much money of her own and was in a tricky spot. I didn't want to be unsupportive of her and it bothered me that she ended up borrowing money from one of her friends. But I think my father would have felt like I was taking sides against him. So it was really hard to know what was the right thing to do. Maybe it's worth another poll...

What would you do if one of your parents wanted to borrow money from you to pay for a divorce?
	Yes, I would lend the money.
	No, I would not lend the money.
	I would say "gee, I'd love to help but I spend all my spare cash on therapy!"
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Rule #11: See No Evil, Hear No Evil...

I met a professional dominatrix at a party the other night. (Being able to say this sort of thing 100% truthfully is reason #1364 why I love New York.) Now if I was really the stellar personal finance blogger that I aspire to be, I would have thought to ask her some relevant questions about her work, such as "how much do rubber bodysuits cost these days," "are your whips and handcuffs tax deductible," and "does the dungeon you work for offer a good 401k?"
I'm sure she would have been willing to talk to me about some of these issues, as she was off-duty and really quite friendly: at one point, she sat on my lap and stroked my cheek, and twice, she bent over and slapped her own ass in my direction, which I think is dominatrix sign-language for "I like you."
Anyway, that was about as much dominatrix as I could handle, so I doubt the PF interview will ever happen, but the encounter did leave me feeling like it was about time we had a few more RULES around here! So appropriately enough, I present Rule #11:

• Sensory deprivation.
  

I think anyone would agree that if you are blindfolded, gagged and restrained, it is virtually impossible to spend money, unless the person who got you into that condition is charging by the hour. But let's think about some more reasonable alternatives, at least as they apply to my life.

I don't watch TV. I think this alone is a huge factor. If I don't see something, I won't want it. And let's face it, advertising works. I can't tell you how often I've had to grit my teeth and pass up buying a Swiffer-- my brain tells me a regular mop or paper towel will do the job, but the commercials make the Swiffer look so much more fun!

I don't read all the catalogs I get. Of course I don't have the willpower to throw out every single one, but most of them go straight in the trash, unless there is a chance I might find something I particularly need.

I don't go window-shopping, and I rarely read fashion magazines, decorating magazines, etc. Just more glossy, beautiful ways to think you need something that you really only want.

I try not to listen to the proverbial Mr. & Mrs. Jones, so I won't be tempted to keep up with the various vacations, new cars, clothes, social activities, and real estate that they are no doubt bragging about.

And though this one might really seem impossible to most people, I don't tend to listen to music radio stations. I used to listen to a great alternative radio station back in the 80s and early 90s, and I was constantly buying records, tapes and CDs of the bands they played. Now I listen to talk programs on NPR and use my iPod for music, and I'm much less tempted to buy new CDs. I still hear music in stores and through friends, and I still read reviews and check things out on iTunes and then buy the CDs I really want. My CD collection may not be the most up-to-the-minute, but I have plenty of great things to listen to, and if I miss some catchy new tune from a one-hit-wonder, I figure it's no great loss.

So that covers some options for the senses of sight and hearing, which are, as it happens, the senses of which a dominatrix is most likely to deprive you. I'm sure there are also ways to save money by not allowing oneself to touch, sniff, or lick things, and if you happen to think of any, please let me know! But be aware that from now on, I will be enforcing a strict policy that all comments be prefaced by "May I speak, Mistress X?" I know you love it, you miserable worms. Thhhwack!

Someone up there is trying to drive me crazy

The weather is beautiful in NYC today-- sunny and warm, I think it may be in the 60s. This is of course happening because I finally decided to replace my ratty old parka with a new super-warm one, and now I have 3 mailordered parkas sitting in my office! One was an REI outlet purchase which didn't work out so I decided to bite the bullet and go for a full-price LL Bean model. At least 2 of the parkas will be returned, but right now I can't even bear to try them on because it is so nice out!

Money Laundering via Gift Cards

Reported today in the NY Times:

Gift Cards Are Increasingly Used to Launder Money

"As drug lords, financiers of terrorism and other money launderers have found it increasingly difficult to move money through the traditional banking system in the United States, they are on the lookout for alternatives, federal officials said. The report examined methods criminals use to move dirty money."

"Prepaid cards "are an emerging cash alternative for both legitimate consumers and money launderers alike."

I don't think I'll try to sell or trade my TJ Maxx card on EBay...

Some apartments for sale

Here's something kind of funny-- I saw this apartment listed on the NY Times website and immediately recognized it as the former home of a friend of mine. She rented it for around $1200, I think, about 7 years ago. Now they are asking $337k and the maintenance is $500 a month, which would work out to monthly costs of at least $2100 or so, with a 20% down payment.
One thing to note is that the "bedroom" is really more of an alcove-- there is no window, and no actual door separating it from the rest of the apartment. So it's really more of a studio-plus.
It's in a good location and it's nice that you can share the roof rights but I think someone is getting a little greedy! I wonder if it will sell... quite a few places I looked at over the last few months are still on the market. Actually, I should qualify that-- the iffy/so-so apartments and complete dogs are still on the market. The nicer ones were snapped up, for the most part. The studio that I originally fell in love with (more of the saga here , here, and here) is actually still on the market-- I thought it had been grabbed after the first deal fell through, so maybe now a 2nd potential buyer has been rejected by the co-op board. This 1BR condo was also kind of cute, but the windows opened out onto a common deck area and a brick wall, so it could have been a nightmare in terms of noise and privacy. It's been on the market for at least 4 months as far as I know and they've never budged on the price. If it seems like a good deal, it isn't-- the taxes are outrageous, bringing the monthly cost of ownership to over $2500.
All in all, I still feel like I made the right choice. No regrets!

Wow. Wall Street.

An anonymous poster left this link in a comment on NYCMoney. Pretty staggering numbers, especially when you look at the change over 20 years.
In 1985, the total amount given out in bonuses was $1.9 billion, and the average bonus was $13.8 million thousand, according to the chart. For 2005, the total is estimated to be $21.5 billion, and the average $125.5 million thousand. By my calculations, that would mean that Wall Street bonuses have grown at a rate 6 times that of inflation. (Also interesting to note, though total bonuses are about 11.3 times higher today than they were in 1985, the Dow average is only about 5.5 times what it was at the end of 1985, not that these things are necessarily supposed to correlate.)

Will someone remind me why I work in publishing?

The Lulla-buy of Broadway

A friend of mine was telling me she just managed to score tickets for a hot Broadway musical. They were over $100 each, and she felt lucky to get them. I've read that total ticket sales for Broadway shows were $825 million dollars in 2005. When tourists come to NYC, it's the top thing most people want to do. They stand in line for hours at TKTS trying to get discount seats. And for the shows that are really popular, you have to buy tickets months in advance if you can manage to get them at all.
Now I enjoy anything on stage to some degree-- there is something about the whole experience, the lights, the stage set, the music... of course it is "magical," as people often say. But a lot of plays never sell out (the best ones do). The ballet and other dance events don't sell out. The opera doesn't sell out. And all of these things are expensive, but not as expensive as Broadway musicals. And frankly, I don't really get it. Why are so many people enamored this particular form of on-stage entertainment? The visuals might be fun but the singing is so labored and coarse, it's like the vocal equivalent of tossing the caber. And the stories don't seem very original these days-- they keep rehashing shows that have been around forever, throwing together "jukebox" shows, or making musicals out of things that were probably best left in their original form, be it book, movie, TV or whatever.
But I suppose I shouldn't complain so much. If there were no Broadway musicals, what would happen to the tens of thousands of starry-eyed former drama club kids who take our orders in restaurants?

My Wallet is Open, Really!

Given the title of my blog, today I thought I would tell you what is in my open wallet, literally.

$2.02

And happily, this matches the balance in my Quicken cash account exactly. I usually carry more cash around than this, but I haven't had a chance to go to the ATM in the last few days. I usually take out $100 at a time, whenever I think I might need it, or when my cash on hand gets around $40 or less. The only things I tend to spend cash on are breakfast and lunch, so I can often go awhile without taking out money. Since I've been cutting back on my breakfast and lunch expenses, it's noticeable how much less often I visit the ATM. But over the weekend I went out to a couple of bars and paid cash for drinks, so now I am running low.

I am always fascinated when I notice people paying cash and peeling the bills off of gigantic wads of money. I know a lot of people just cash their paychecks and carry the money around until they spend it. But other people just feel nervous without a lot of money in their pockets, I think. My uncle is a case in point. He makes plenty of money and certainly keeps it in the bank, but he always seems to have several hundred dollars in cash in his wallet. He also just likes to pay for a lot of things in cash rather than using credit cards. Even though he drives everywhere and pays lots of tolls, he refuses to use an EZPass because he doesn't want the government to be able to track his movements. Well, strange paranoias aside, I wonder how others feel about this issue. What do you spend cash on? How much of it do you carry around? Please chime in and vote in the poll below!

How much cash do you usually carry in your wallet?
	$1-$20
	$21-$50
	$51-$100
	$101-$300
	Over $300
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Personal Finance Books: What's the Next Big Thing?

Since I work in publishing, part of my interest in personal finance books is from the other side of the fence. I wonder what makes a particular book stand out from the crowd, what the next big bestseller will be, and how it was marketed. People like Suze Orman and Robert Kiyosaki have been around for a while now-- will someone else come along and capture the interest of the book-reading public in the way they have? And how will the publisher make it happen?

Publisher's Weekly recently did a feature on finance books, with an article titled "Who's the Next Biz Guru?" The article talks about how in the past, publishers have looked for authors who already have a platform-- they're affiliated with a newspaper, magazine or TV show, or are active on the lecture circuit. But as one editor says, that doesn't necessarily guarantee a book will succeed. Too many books have said all the same things, about cutting expenses, paying yourself first, maximizing 401k savings, etc. What made some of the current bestsellers stand out is that they actually "promoted ideas that were out of the ordinary, even contrarian," such as the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series.

Another interesting point made by the PW article is about the promotional venues for finance books: "...television coverage of the topic is limited. There's no equivalent of the Food Network for personal finance authors, and Oprah... isn't likely to showcase one of Suze Orman's competitors as long as Orman pens a regular column for O magazine."
How do personal finance authors get the word out about their books? Radio, print, and increasingly, the Internet. Quite a few PF bloggers seem to have been sent advance copies of Lee Eisenberg's The Number and have written reviews of the book. (I personally was not asked to review or promote the book, but became interested in it after reading about it on other blogs, and decided to add an Amazon link on this site, which is exactly the kind of viral marketing effect the publisher was probably hoping for!)

So who might be the next big thing? PW profiles some candidates.

Loral Langemeier certainly has the out of the ordinary and contrarian ideas that should get her a lot of attention. Her book, The Millionaire Maker (available now), takes a tactical, not psychological approach to building wealth. She thinks entrepreneurship is the way to go and wants people to quit their jobs, start small businesses and buy income-producing rental properties with their savings. She does not focus on cutting expenses or getting out of debt. "Millionaires don't worry about a latte a day, you know," she says. She counters the suggestion that her approach might be risky by saying "it's only risky because most people don't know." Her platform: she has a coaching-consulting company called Live Out Loud and claims that she has made over 200 people millionaires and that none of her 10,000 clients have ever filed for bankruptcy. She herself was a multi-millionaire by age 35. She has done TV segments on a San Francisco station about her financial makeovers, and regularly does appearances with T. Harv Eker (Secrets of the Millionaire Mind), Marc Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup for the Soul) and Robert Kiyosaki. From what I read about this book, it sounds like it could be a big hit, so keep an eye on this one.


Phil Town's book Rule #1 (available late March '06) offers a practical plan for getting rich via value investing. Town says "it's really simple... you just buy a wonderful company and you buy it at an attractive price." He has no formal business training, so his book is said to have a populist twist, and focuses on how the average investor can gather data on the internet. Town also shares a lot of his personal story about how he was transformed from an ex-Green Beret hippie rafting tour guide to the clean-cut motivational speaker and millionaire he is today. He regularly speaks at day-long "Get Motivated" conferences and estimates that he has told his story to "a couple million" people over the past four or five years. His publisher compares the launch of Rule #1 to when they were launching Suze Orman's The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. They had Town set up a blog a year before publication. They introduced him to key bookstore buyers at BookExpo America (the national convention for the publishing industry), gave their sales reps DVDs of his lectures, and flew a national chain store buyer to see Town speak at a stadium in Philadelphia. And watch your AdSense, bloggers-- the book will be advertised via Google. This book also seems to have a good chance at success, but I wonder if it really says anything new and exciting enough to really make people want to buy it. But the publisher might be thinking that value investing advice, even if it's all been heard before from the likes of Warren Buffett, is going to seem more appealing to more people than the kind of radical plan Loral offers. If I had to bet, I think Loral might just hit a nerve and have Phil beat. But Phil's publisher (Crown) has announced a first printing of 250,000, vs. the 100,000 McGraw Hill says they'll print for Loral. These announced first prints are always complete lies anyway, so that might mean nothing. Who knows. I'll have to report back on these in a month or two with data from Nielsen BookScan, which tracks retail sales, to see if my hunch was correct!

Some other new books mentioned in the PW feature:
The Number, by Lee Eisenberg
Money, A Memoir, by Liz Perle
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, by Judith Levine

Disclosure (sort of): Because I work in the publishing industry, I may occasionally be writing about books published by companies I work for or have worked for in the past. I won't tell you which ones, because I don't want to reveal who I am or where I work. If a book publicist contacts me via this site and asks me to review a book, I won't accept a galley because I won't give out my mailing address. Any book I discuss is one I have either bought, borrowed from the library, read while sitting in a bookstore, or obtained through my job or contacts at other publishing houses who were not told why I wanted a copy. I do have Amazon ads on my site, but otherwise, any financial gain I might get from promoting these books is very indirect and very small. If I praise a book, it is because I think it deserves praise, and if I think a book sucks, I'll say so even if my company publishes it! Either way, I don't think I'm moving the needle. If my blog suddenly started getting a million hits a year, I might reconsider this policy, but for the moment, that's the way it goes, folks. Caveat lector.

2005 budget vs. actual

One last year-end observation: after I wrote the last post, I realized I had looked at actual expenses but not at how they totaled up vs. the budget I established at the beginning of the year. I was over budget on expenses by quite a bit, but I realized when I budgeted my payroll taxes, I only took into account the bi-weekly deductions from my salary, not the big bite that gets taken out of my bonus. So when I backed out the taxes, here was the result:

2005 expense budget: $35,042
2005 expense actual: $35,055
variance: +$13 / 0.04%

Whooo, it almost made chills run up my spine! Isn't that freaky? Of course some of the categories within the budget were well over (dining, gifts, home-buying expenses), and others were under (travel, miscellaneous, gym, clothing) but I still can't believe the final result was so dead-on. Of course I would have preferred for it to have been -$13...

[Updated] Wait a minute, wait a minute! I just compared this to the post below and realized I have my budget and actual reversed! The actual is $35,042 and budget was $35,055! I AM UNDER budget by $13! Now I am just tickled pink and I can go and enjoy the rest of my Saturday night with a spring in my step and a smile on my face! I will have to use my $13 to buy one of the fabulous Cosmopolitans at Temple Bar!

More on Net Worth and 2005 income and expenses

When I posted my year-end net worth the other day, I didn't really go into much detail about how I got there. So here it is!

On 1/1/05, my net worth was $205,461, so during 2005 it increased by $50,887, or almost 25%.

My total income in 2005 was $108,433. This includes $80,671 salary, $8,176 bonus, $475 cash gifts, $2,486 tax refund, and $1,857 interest. The rest is dividends, capital gains and 401k matching contributions by my employer.

My total expenses for the year were $61,109. Some of the major categories are broken out below:
Taxes $26,067
Rent $10,200
Food/dining $8,056
Clothing $1,863
Telephone $1,518
Travel (including commuting, family visits and actual vacation trips) $3,535
Education $714
Entertainment $588
Gifts given $1,509
Home-buying expenses $1,350
Medical (insurance, co-pays, medicine, etc) $1,255
Household $829
Subscriptions (AOL, newspapers, mags) $792
Miscellaneous (haircuts, and other odds & ends) $1,323

If you look at just my salary and bonus income, subtracting taxes and 401k contributions, that comes to $48,780. My non-tax expenses were $35,042. So aside from the retirement savings and investment-related gains in my net worth, a lot of my increase was due to my saving 28% of my after-tax income, which I think is pretty good, if I do say so myself! If you count the 401k contributions of $14,000, I saved 44% of my income.
One of the reasons I can save so much is that my rent is quite low, at least compared to most people who live alone in New York City. But when I look at the rest of my expenses, it just seems like I didn't spend that much on non-necessities. $588 on entertainment sort of makes me feel like I barely scratched the surface of all the entertaining things you can do in NYC. But it's not like I didn't have fun this year! I took my sailing lessons & French classes, travelled to London and California and went hiking in Massachusetts (which compared to other recent years seems like I barely traveled at all!), bought some music and books and clothes, and generally managed to feel like I was living pretty well.
In the last few months, I've been trying to do a little more penny-pinching, and I want to stay on this budget until after I'm settled in my new home and can see what's left of my bank accounts! I won't be taking any big trips until probably the end of 2006 at best, and I'll be continuing to try to trim my food expenses a bit. But this isn't bothering me so much, as the payoff will be living in a nicer place and building equity as a homeowner. Onwards and upwards!

NY Times real estate listings tracker

I've been tracking the number of real estate listings advertised on the NY Times website, updating my spreadsheet almost weekly since late June 05. I always capture the listing count on Friday, to be sure I get all the listings that have been submitted for the weekend. As I've mentioned before, this is not necessarily the best way to get an accurate picture of what is going on in the housing market, but it's interesting to look at nonetheless, and should have some correlation to the supply of housing on the market.
Here is my chart thus far:














Some of the fluctuations here may be seasonal-- over the summer, there were fewer properties on the market. The summer slump is most noticeable in Manhattan, since anyone who can afford to live there also seems to be able to afford not to live there in the summer! Then things pick up in the Fall, peaking at around the middle of November, and easing off a bit through the holidays. So far, at least, it doesn't look like everyone has seen a crash coming and decided to sell high, but it will be interesting to see what the chart looks like over the next few months...

Net worth 12/31/05

I finally added up all my dividends and closed out the year. Great news: my net worth on 12/31/05 was $256,348... and that doesn't count $611 worth of business expenses due to be reimbursed. (Tracking these kinds of recievables as an asset begins to get a little too anal even for me.)
I was surprised it was this high, I really blew past my goals this year! It must be the blogging, and the supportive, encouraging comments from my beloved readers! (except for the one who said I was "psychotic".) Thanks all!

Cash flow

I have decided to cut back my 401k contributions to 10% for the next few months, just to be sure I have cash on hand for closing costs and moving expenses. Some of my money is in CDs that don't mature for a while, so although I should have at least 7 months' living expenses on hand after I move, not all of it will be liquid right away. I don't have any specific part of my money designated as an emergency fund. I guess I've always just considered all of my money to be one big emergency fund! Of course I'd like to think I won't have any dire emergencies, and if I did, I could always cash out a CD early and just pay the penalty... but I think I'll play it safe, and then after I move, change my payroll deductions back to a much higher amount.
Fortunately I already maxed out my 2005 Roth IRA contribution, so I don't have to worry about doing that before April, and I'll have plenty of time to make the 2006 one later.
I'm really committed to maxing out my retirement savings, so part of me feels like I should never back off from those payroll deductions (or else Caitlin will think I'm a hypocrite)... but I see this as just a timing issue. I am still resolved to get to the maximum by the end of the year.
It's all a balancing act right now-- my 10% deposit check has now been cashed, so that is the first big chunk of cash to go bye-bye. I need to have another 10% plus a large amount to cover closing costs, all of which I'll detail in future posts. In the next couple of months, one of my CDs will mature, and I hope to receive a decent bonus and a nice tax refund. If these come through, and if I can keep on track with my savings each month, I won't have to sell as many of my stocks and mutual funds. But it is a little nerve-wracking trying to make sure I'll have all my funds in the right place at the right time! I guess it's been a long time since I didn't have enough savings not to have to worry about cash flow. There was one instance a few years ago where I racked up $11,000 worth of business expenses and then had to pay the credit card bill, as well as movers, an apartment fee and security deposit all at once before my expense reimbursement check came through-- that was a little scary. But somehow I ended up being able to juggle things and it all worked out. And the frequent flier miles were worth it!

Mutual funds

...And here's a look at some of the mutual funds I'll have to consider selling. These have mostly done so well I don't really want to get rid of them, but some of them seem like they might just be teetering at a peak after big gains in the last couple of years, so perhaps I'd be locking in the best returns I could get. Of course if I actually had any way of really knowing that, I'd be a millionaire by now...

	current price	% change since I bought
BRSIX	$ 18.23	112.89%
ICENX	$ 34.12	65.83%
RYTRX	$ 12.82	58.47%
RYVPX	$ 12.35	31.38%
VEIEX	$ 20.02	14.97%
TIVFX	$ 15.71	7.50%

Sweet smell of non-success

A couple of months ago, NYC was abuzz over a strange, sweet smell that pervaded the city. I personally never smelled it, but supposedly it was a maple syrupy kind of smell. Some people worried it was a toxic gas released by terrorists, some thought it was just a candy factory run amok, and today there was a follow-up story blaming it all on New Jersey.

My personal theory was that it came from all those real estate brokers making cinnamon rolls at open houses!

And what about stocks?

At some point in the next couple of months, I'll need to cash out part of my investment portfolio in order to come up with the rest of the cash I'll need at the closing for my condo. As of right now, all my stocks and mutual funds are up except for GM. I was looking at the analyst ratings on the individual stocks that I own:
XRX: mostly hold
LU: hold
GM: hold to sell
MCD: hold to buy


















For all of them, the "hold" rating was by far the highest bar in the chart. I don't know what it means, either those analysts are wusses who don't want to go out on a limb, or I am just a really middle-of-the-road kind of investor, I guess. Whatever.

Today's housing market news

Today there was quite a prominent story in the print edition of the NY Times, about the 4th quarter Manhattan housing market. Oddly enough, the online version of the story is kind of buried in the Times website.
In short, the number of sales in the 4th quarter declined by 27% from a year earlier. Prices were down from the record highs, but still higher than a year ago. Of course there are different reports that come to different conclusions about prices, and cite different reasons for why the data is the way it is. Price per square foot is holding steady, which may be one of the more accurate indicators. But it seems quite clear that one of the things that is happening is that people are spooked by news reports about the housing bubble, and it has made them hold off from buying in the last couple of months. Everybody loves a bargain and no one wants to seem like the chump who overpaid at the top of the market, so the more buzz there is about prices declining, the more it is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Maybe the webmaster at the Times just bought a place and wanted to hide the story in order to protect his investment!)

I can't quite decide where I think things are going to go. I do think prices are crazy, and it just seems wrong that people in Manhattan can be paying $400,000 and up for studio apartments. Although there are studies showing that housing affordability hasn't drastically worsened in recent years due to lower interest rates, etc., there is just no way that a lot of middle class people aren't being priced out of the housing market. $400,000 may be an affordable price for many middle class families, but how do you squeeze a family into a studio? Manhattan is a weird example-- it's always been expensive for middle class people. But I think it's getting worse. The problem is that the rich are getting richer, and the rich love owning apartments in Manhattan.

Of course my experience isn't universally representative of what it is like to live in NYC, but of everyone I know in my own age range, all young, professional types, you'd think that as we moved from our early 20s to our late 30s, and moved up in our careers we'd be able to afford nicer apartments in nicer neighborhoods. But instead it's been just the opposite-- we can't even run fast enough to stay in one place, we're all sliding backwards, into smaller apartments or further out into the outer boroughs or suburbs. This isn't such a terrible thing-- more of those outer borough neighborhoods are now lively, fun places with plenty of services, restaurants, entertainment and all the things that make us want to live in NYC in the first place.

So I don't know what to think. Will things hold steady or just stumble a bit? Will things crash? SHOULD they crash? It's hard not to feel conflicted as my own contract is signed now! Most of the time I still feel quite confident that I will be relatively ok even if prices do come down over the next few years... but then I worry that it will be like when I bought GM! My shares are down about 57% as of this morning. Ugh.

December spending

Despite Christmas gift-giving, I didn't really break the bank in December. It hardly seems possible, and I can't say my waistline shows it, but Quicken swears that I only spent $300.04 on food in December! I was away from home for parts of the month, and was trying not to buy lunch much, but I'm still shocked that the number is that low.
I only spent $559 on gifts. I might have bought a couple of small things in November, but I also just tried not to spend too much and I cut back on the number of people to whom I gave gifts. And of course I gave a few people books that I got for free. Shh!
Entertainment was $109.63-- a movie, a couple of DVD rentals, and my binge on CDs. (I didn't end up making those mix CDs as gifts afterall!)
Household was $49.61-- laundry, and some cleaning supplies
Miscellaneous: $80 on a haircut and $36.83 on a few months' worth of styling products for my elegant coiffure. Also a couple dollars worth of stamps to send postcards from Mexico.
Travel: $190 worth of Amtrak tickets, $16 worth of Long Island Railroad tickets bought at special transit strike fare (and which went unused since the strike ended), $36 worth of taxis ($10 of that was due to the strike), $3.00 toll while in car with my mom, and $1.25 for a T token in Boston.
Telephone: $144 (my cellphone bill was high at $76.36, but I'll get reimbursed for about $30 from my job), then $42.39 long-distance, and $25.22 for my local service. I'm going to start paying more attention to the phone costs so I'll be ready to decide if I want to go for VOIP!
That is all I spent, aside from the fixed monthly expenses of rent, insurance, newspaper sub, French lessons, AOL, etc. Now I have to look back and see how I did on all my yearly budgets, and work out my 2006 spending budgets... should be fun!

New link: Matrix

I keep finding lots of new blogs to read and it's hard to keep up with them! I realized I didn't have a link to one of my favorites, Matrix. From their "about" page:
Launched in August 2005, Matrix is an attempt to cull together items of interest or relevance in the real estate economy.
The author is one of the founders of a real estate appraisal firm called MillerSamuel. They collect and interpret a lot of real estate and economic data. I first discovered them through some of the interesting charts they post on Curbed.
They always seem to put a slightly different spin on things than any of the other sites I read, always good food for thought, especially for someone like me who needs balanced views on whether there is a real estate bubble in NYC to keep her from getting an ulcer over her own apartment purchase!

Goals for 2006 and beyond

It's a bit early for me to post my final end-of-2005 net worth, as I still need to reconcile some dividends and stuff on my E*Trade and 401k accounts, but the good news is that I will definitely be over my goal of $250k.
So what about 2006? After a little huff on the crytal ball, I decided to set myself a goal of $275k for the end of 2006. This might be a little wimpy, but I am going to have some hefty costs associated with purchasing my new home next year, and I'll be saving a bit less per month, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. The tricky thing next year will be deciding whether to count my home at its purchase price, or more, or less, depending on where the market's gone by then.
I also have another longer term goal: I'd like to save enough cash to have a down payment on another apartment by 2010. (Yeah, I know, I haven't even closed on this one and I'm already getting greedy!) I still don't feel like I really want to become a big investor in real estate, or deal with the headaches of being a landlord, but I think I'd like to hang on to the apartment I'm buying even if I decide I'd like to live someplace else eventually. It just seems like it will be too good a thing to get rid of, financially-- I doubt I'll ever get such a low mortgage rate again, and I should always be able to rent it out profitably. We'll see-- a lot could change between now and then.

A quiet day

Well, I'm back at work today, but the rest of the world might as well be sleeping-- it's very quiet in NYC today. Perhaps the general lack of traffic on the street is what emboldened someone to steal my newspaper this morning. Fortunately, I could call the NY Times and have them credit me-- but it's a bit annoying that they only credit you the 95 cents you pay per day to subscribe, rather than the full $1 it costs you to replace your missing paper. Bastards!

I've been thinking about how to spend my $25 TJ Maxx gift card. This was a gift from my mother, who just LOVES TJ Maxx. A few times I've mentioned to her that I don't really like TJ Maxx very much, and that I can never find much there (even though I sometimes have luck at Marshall's). She had given me a $25 gift card for my birthday, which I spent on Xmas eve, buying a yoga mat, some men's undershirts (comfy to sleep in) and, aha, a Xmas present for my mother! Back at ya, mom! I was so glad to be rid of the gift card, so it figures she gave me another one the very next day.
The problem is that TJ Maxx is not the kind of store that you can really go to when you are searching for something specific that you want. Chances are that if you really need something, TJ Maxx won't have it that day. TJ Maxx is the kind of evil store that makes you buy things you don't need just because they seem like a bargain. The kind of store that should be avoided like the plague! I am not immune, and I swear half the stuff I've bought at TJ Maxx or Marshall's ends up sitting in drawers unworn. Maybe I'll just hang onto the gift card and buy my mother a birthday present with it!