Frugal in the Fruitlands

This is part two in the Dirty Facts About Lise’s Finances series.

In my previous expenses overview, I bet some of you looked at the $3,196/month figure for our mortgage and cried. Probably my mother did. Hi Mom!

There’s a little bit more to it than merely spending 53% of my net income on housing. Here is the detailed breakdown:

Total cost of the House: $375,000
Time lived in: One year
Brief Description: It has three bedrooms, a spacious basement that we use for sewing and craft space, one and a half baths, and a gorgeous sunroom, with central heat/air/vac, a well, and private sewer. It is on three acres of land in the middle of the Hickory Hills region of Lunenburg, MA, about 50 miles from Boston.
Down payment: Since we didn’t have a spare $38K lying around when we bought the house, we purchased the house with zero down (we used our savings to pay the closing costs).
Mortgage: We actually have two, opting for the piggyback route to get out of paying PMI:

• A 30-year fixed mortgage of $300,000 with an interest rate of ~6%.
• A 15-year sub-prime mortgage at 8.9% (yeouch). It is amortized over 30 years, but balloons in 15 years, meaning we’ll have to pay off the balance in full at that time. Obviously this is something we want to avoid.

Monthly payment: Minimum monthly payment is $2,666, which is 44% of our total income—it’s a bit high relative to the recommend 30%, but it’s about average for the Boston area. However, we put $500 extra per month towards the second mortgage. At this rate, the second mortgage will be paid off in seven years.

Paying off your home early is a conservative investment, it’s true. But when the interest rate is 8.9%, and sub-prime mortgages are looking so iffy, it seems pretty sound to me. Once that second mortgage is paid off, my husband and/or myself will be able to reduce the number of hours we work.

In retrospect, I might have done things a little differently if I had to do it again: I might have waited longer before buying, or I might have pushed for a smaller house. Ironically, just as my interest in voluntary simplicity grew, I bought into this rather large house in the suburbs. But done is done, and I’m thankful for what I have.

In closing:
Average mortgage expenses over the past three months: $3,196/month
Mortgage budget for the next year: $3,196/month. We will continue to pay $500 extra as often as we can. In an emergency, we would be able to hold this back and only pay the minimum $2,666/month.

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I am a little PUNCHY tonight.

• Lo, for I am Sir Now Appearing in the 89th Festival of Frugality, with my article The Economics and Philosophy of a Spending Trigger. This week’s festival had a strong focus on thriftiness vs. moral decrepitude. On that note, my favorite article was Golbguru’s Is This Frugal… Or Just Not Quite Right? The worst example I’ve seen of thriftiness at the expense of generosity is a Dollar Stretcher tip I once saw that recommended stuffing hair from barbers’ floors into used pantyhose to make gifts for your gardening friends (apparently human hair keeps deer away). Nothing says love like a flesh-colored bag of human hair!
• Coming up next on XORsted: Dirty Facts About My Finances, Part Deux: Electric Boogaloo Housing.
• Next week classes start up again. I’m taking Systems Programming, in which I Will Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Pointers; and Database Design, which might actually teach me something immediately saleable. This means I will either be somewhat sluggish to post or I will take the opportunity to procrastinate and write madly. Whatever I do write, it will be well-commented and there will be no null pointer exceptions.

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The next time the radio digs it up, pay attention to the lyrics of Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun.”. You’ll be surprised by the message of voluntary simplicity this song sends:

It’s not having what you want
It’s wanting what you’ve got

Apparently Sheryl Crow attracted quite a bit of attention this year when she forwarded the suggestion that a limitation be put on how much toilet paper is used. She and No-Impact Man should together. I’m sure they would have plenty to talk about.

What’s playing on your voluntary simplicity/frugality radio?

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Last night, my favorite vendor of perfume oils, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, released a bevy of limited edition autumn/Halloween-themed scents. I’m finding it very difficult to keep my mouse finger still and not snap up the entire collection, despite the dire state of my expenses and the fact that I already have more BPAL oils than I can possibly use before they go rancid.

I’m moderate in so many things - why do I go crazy for little bottles of smellies?

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Since this blog is moving more in the frugality and personal finance direction, I thought it was only fair to my (few) readers to make it clear where I am coming from in terms of personal finance and frugality.

The secret: I’m no frugal ninja, yet. My husband and I probably own more house than we can afford, and we still have to work around that. Voluntary simplicity and financial independence are goals of mine, but they are still distant goals.

So here’s the start of the Dirty Facts about Lise’s Finances Series. I’m not doing this to impress anyone or make anyone resent me. I’m doing this, in part, because money is taboo, but also because I want people to know that I still, often, “give myself very good advice, but very seldom follow it.”

I plan to spread this out over a few posts, but here’s the beginning: my husband’s and my income and expenses for the past seven- and three-month periods.

The Bad News is, I am consistently outspending my income, if only by a little. I am managing to stay afloat, nonetheless. We do have some credit card debt - less than $2000 - but more about that later.

The Good News is, my expenses over the last three months - where I’ve started to put a more consistent effort into frugality - are greatly decreased.

Here’s the basic breakdown:
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The test is Saturday. Me and isosceles triangles, we’re like this.

… I need a break. I’m going to post this and then go be a couch-spore for a while.

• Look, my vewwy fiwst appearance in a Festival of Frugality! What I like to term my TidyCat Manifesto appeared in the Festival of Frugality #87 at Frugal for Life. XORsted is all grown up!
• I’m delighted to be going to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy tomorrow night at Boarding House Park in Lowell, MA. It’s not the frugalist of frugal entertainments, at $15 a ticket, but still very reasonable for a band that is AWESOME in concert. The Lowell Summer Music Series has numerous other reasonably-priced concerts going on this season.
• I’ve been remiss in posting real content, but I’ll clue you in to some of the posts I’m working on:
  • Sheryl Crow on wanting what you have
  • Your stuff: a historical context
  • A frugal vacation in Lovecraft country?
  • Full of shame and egg rolls

In parting, a confession: I’m still trying to work out what I want to do with this blog. No, don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. But my original goal here was simply to post articles that were slightly more journalistic and thought-out than the articles I post on my LJ; now I’m finding more and more that I enjoy writing about frugality and voluntary simplicity - inasmuch as I try to live it.

If I were going to narrow the focus of this blog, I think I would rename it, as well. “Frugal in the Fruitlands” has been on my mind for a while now, and it has a nice ring to it. It would incorporate frugality, voluntary simplicity, some personal finance and productivity, and perhaps a little local color.

What do you think? Would this make you more or less likely to read? Subscribe? </market research hat>

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Inspired by Trent’s Ten Frugal Things To Do With An Empty Vitamin Water (Or Other Plastic Beverage) Container

There aren’t many products for which I show brand loyalty. Cat litter, however, is one of them. I will only use TidyCats litter, and only the scoopable kind that comes in a 27 lb bucket. My cats rip through 27 pounds of kitty litter in record time, however, which creates a bit of a waste problem as far as the buckets go (the used litter itself is another issue entirely). I can recycle them here in Lunenburg, but I’ve become rather attached to my army of yellow and blue buckets, and have found them infinitely useful over the years. Here are just some of the things I’ve done with TidyCat containers.

Hint: some of these tips involve ripping the lid off the bucket. I find this hard to do since I have no upper body strength, but if you or your significant other is not so much of a pantywaist as I am, it should be no problem.

The most obvious use to put them to is mop buckets. Despite holding only dry goods, the pails are watertight, and I have several times used them to mix and hold cleaning solution. Be sure you wipe all the kitty litter dust out of the bottom before you do this, unless you like clay mixed with your Murphy’s Oil Soap.

Drill some holes in the bottom for drainage, fill it with potting soil, and you have a cheap and easy planter. I currently have chives planted in one of mine. If you want to doll it up, I’m sure you could sand the plastic down a little and paint it.

Use it as a blockade. If you have cats (which I’ll assume you do if you’ve read this far; either that, or you have expensive tastes in gritting the drive), you probably have something to blockade. In our upstairs bathroom, we have two empty buckets against the wall where one of our cats likes to urinate. You may need to fill it with something heavy (like - hey! - cat litter) and you will probably want to leave the lid on for this.

FlyLady would be proud of me. I’ve labeled three TidyCat containers with “Give Away” “Put Away” and “Throw Away” and use them when doing a timed declutter of a room.

Continuing the declutter theme: If there are items that you aren’t sure you want to get rid of, serious organizers often recommend boxing it up, putting a date on it, and storing it for a year. TidyCat containers work for long-term storage - keep the lid on for this one, so that you can stack multiple buckets on top of each other.

Moving? Use the containers to pack books, which are often too heavy if packed together in large boxes. They also work well for hand-held appliances.

Do you use Freecycle? Do you have something to be picked up and it’s pouring down rain? Put it in a TidyCat container, write “For [name]” on the lid with a permanent marker, close it, and leave it on your deck or porch.

Run out of garbage bags? Use a TidyCat bucket to hold waste until you can get to the store. On this note, you can use it to dispose of used cat litter as well. (This is a frugal, but not very green tip, as you’ll probably have to throw the bucket out afterwards).

If someone asks for a bag or a box at a garage sale or fleamarket you’re working, give them a TidyCat container instead. Maybe they’ll get as much use out of it as you have!

The only tip I haven’t used myself: use it as a mini-composter or to make leaf mold. Compost Guide will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about making compost. It seems logical to me that you could make a mini composter by drilling holes in the sides and lid, turning it occasionally, watering it, and “taking its temperature” when necessary. Since it’s not recommended that you put too much “brown” material in a compost heap at once, you can compost your leaves into leaf mold separately: add them to an aerated TidyCat container, add a little soil, and wait six months.

What would you do with a used TidyCat container?

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This post is in response to a comment I saw on a ZenHabits article months ago and which has been digging at me every since:

“My only criticism of ZTD is your emphasis on recording progress, and what I would call over routinization. I completely agree that routines such as getting up early, going on a run, getting hard work done first, make a lot of sense. What I don’t agree with is making a routine out of the whole day almost, I don’t want to be a robot.”

It is worth mentioning that this commentator is in his teens. I suspect that at that age, I may have felt the same way. As the level of responsibility in my life has increased, I’ve gained the wisdom that you can’t always depend on passion and spontaneity to meet all those demands.

I’m a fan of FlyLady, and FlyLady herself is a devotee of routines. She coined the phrase “routines are not straitjackets,” and that is pretty much my sentiment on the matter. There are a couple of ways to interpret this phrase, all equally valid:

1. Routines aren’t things you have to do; they’re things you do to nourish your own well-being. You’re not meant to wake up and say, “Ho-hum, I have to make the bed again.” Ideally, you’re not even supposed to think about it. It’s supposed to be something you do automatically so that when you come back to it later, you think, “Wow, the bed’s made! Isn’t that awesome? Now I have a clean and comfortable place to rest.”

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A couple of points of note about my life right now:

• I’m on day 8 of my no caffeine challenge and still going strong.
• I’m once again participating in the ZenHabits monthly challenge (see the ZenHabits forums for more information). My challenge this month is to do something everyday to move my career forward.
• One opportunity that I’m exploring is the possibility of doing a community blog for my local newspaper - they still need one for Lunenburg, and I think I know enough about blogging, and the area, to make it successful. It’s an unpaid opportunity, but I believe it would be a smart move toward building my own profile.
• I’ve put together a list of 101 goals in 1,001 days, a la Triplux and many many others. Its purpose is more inspiration than a step-by-step plan - I still intend to make progress in these habits largely via monthly challenges.

And here are some of my better posts from this month, if you haven’t read them already:

• The daily miracle of time
• Five cheap ways to feel rich
• Pants don’t need a mission statement

If you haven’t subscribed to XORsted yet, I invite you to do so.

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Lunenburg Public Library, which owns my heart as well as my soul, has some great plans to entertain us in August:

• The annual Great Cardboard Boat Race sets sail this Saturday, August 4th, at 5pm at the town beach on Lake Whalom. Having seen the entry forms, which specify such things as “crew must be reasonably warm-blooded,” I am hoping I can connive my father into attending. Even if the event is less than stellar… hey, at least we’re at the beach.
• Annual Block Party - Farewell to Harry Potter, on Thursday, August 9th at 6pm. The last time I was in the library, I noticed a copy of Deathly Hallows go out on the new books shelf and disappear within seconds. Apparently the library has eight copies and still accommodates a waiting list.

And let us not forget Lunenburg’s Summer ArtsFest, happening August 10th-11th, at various locations. (Flier at the link above).

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