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Post 2090
- 7 years and 169 days since I started this blog -
- 7 years and 169 days since I started this blog -
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I have had a series of negative things - accidents, mistakes, all, one way or another, my fault. Don't worry, I have already forgiven myself and gotten over them.
So, still happy.
You need to know that I've been keeping a budget since my mid-twenties. Of course, back then, it was a pencil-and-paper affair, but it made sense to me to do it back then - I was living hand-to-mouth, and was stressing over it.
There's also the fact that I have always been 'entertained' by numbers - I'm a mathematics-oriented guy, since failing 10th-grade algebra (story for another time). So working with/playing with numbers has never been a chore for me. My degree is in Mathematics and I graduated summa cum laude.
Still later, I was very taken by the first home finance program, Dollar$ and Sen$e, when it came out. I was thrilled to have my budgeting automated, and by the ability to break a year apart into months. When that program was discontinued, I switched to the competing, adequate-but-not-as-good Quicken (for DOS), and have used it for more than thirty years now.
Bottom line (haha!), I budget.
In the last three weeks, there have been a series of unforeseen budget-busting expenses. Because I've been committed to living within my means (e.g., no debt) for the last decade (my response to the personal financial collapse I experienced in 2007 that culminated in divorce, joblessness and homelessness, and precipitated my move to Syracuse in June, 2008), I sold some stock (which is to say, I dipped into my retirement savings), and will have to sell some more a little later in the year. So, I have handled it.
I'll tell about these financially bad events, and how I responded (well, I've already told you how I responded financially, but there's the psychological element that had to be dealt with). Here's the story:
Three weeks ago, I got the formal invitation to my niece's wedding. It is going to be a big, fancy affair. I got a call from my brother, wanting to know what I thought about it, and had to consider some factors I hadn't: That I would be unable to stay at my sister's (she had a full house with out-of-town people). It became obvious to me that if I didn't help out, my brother and sister-in-law would be unable to attend the wedding. They could not afford a room in the hotel (two-hundred-plus bucks!).
So, I encountered my first unplanned-for expense: An additional trip to Brooklyn, and the cost of an AirBnB apartment. Only a little of that expense had been anticipated in my budget when I first found out about the wedding, before I knew any details. This is some hundreds of dollars I didn't foresee. No blame, but it turned out to be just the beginning.
Next, I had planned on spending some money getting out of Syracuse for the Winter, which meant covering travel costs in next year's budget (I had done this last year, when I bought my ticket and paid for my lodging in Chiang Mai).
Then, I found an incredibly cheap flight to Lisbon, still cheap even after adding the extra airfare from Syracuse, and bought it. Finding good, cheap lodging, though, was difficult - given the longer stay and higher costs, it was three times as expensive as Chiang Mai had been (although the airfare was cheaper). I realized also that my day-to-day living in Portugal would be more expensive as well, but that was next year's problem.
I made changes to my budget, but I was quickly approaching my limit. And I had decided to go back to Chiang Mai as well, and proceeded to book that. Even extending my time to a month, I found a good airfare and AirBnB room that, with some budget manipulation, didn't bust my budget - but definitely left me no slack.
I had booked my Chiang Mai flight around plans to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I thought Mardi Gras was the second Tuesday in March, but after booking my flight and getting my AirBnB (and after a few days had passed, including the long weekend I wrote about last Tuesday), I found out I was wrong about that date, wrong about what I "knew". It turns out the day of Mardi Gras is set by something called the Ecclesiastical moon, some kind of Church nonsense, and the date can vary within six weeks. This year, Mardi Gras is the first Tuesday in March. I'd been off by three weeks! I would be in Chiang Mai when Mardi Gras happened. I'd have to miss it, or re-book.
I made the fiscally irresponsible but culturally necessary decision to re-book. And broke my budget, right there, because that exercise cost me over $400. But I remained true to my priorities, and saw that If I took some cash out of my margin account, I could cover that overage. I didn't like it, but the decision felt right, and was definitely the one that favored happiness.
That was my second unanticipated, un-budgeted expense.
The next hit came by a sad accident. After a night of revelry, including a concert and a birthday celebration, I had a comical and costly accident. Slightly drunk at the end of the evening, I was taking a post-midnight walk on the Creek Walk in downtown Syracuse when my phone rang. Struggling to get it out of my 'murse' in the near dark, it went flying overhead, bounced off a couple of rocks, and ended up in the creek (to all intents and purposes, an open sewer).
I bought a new iPhone the next day, for an out-of-pocket cost $300, and a further additional $30/month, which, after my switch to T-mobile is still less than I was paying for Verizon, but that was one of the things that changed my budget... So it still had an effect.
I had a dentist appointment Thursday, which was free. But I was told I had a broken crown. Saturday morning, I got the reply from my insurance company for my estimated out-of-pocket cost for that: $800.
Saturday night, I met up with band-mates Tami and Brian after a show they did. I was getting impatient waiting for them in the parking lot, and took out my phone to call and make sure they were okay, when Brian tapped me on the shoulder and startled me. I dropped the phone, and shattered my three-day-old screen. Another $180 to repair.
Let's recap: unforeseen expenses for niece Katie's wedding, expensive travel booking error, new phone, dental cost, screen repair. About two grand in unforeseen, unplanned, unbudgeted expenses. Of which, only the dental work was, strictly speaking, necessary.
Yet, at no point did I allow money issues to change my mood. I let go of the immediate anger-anxiety response as each thing happened, and figured out, after coping, how to adjust.
That's what my habitual gratefulness has brought to my life - an unshakable sense of calm and acceptance, and the ability to not let external things determine one's happiness.
Is it weird to be grateful for gratitude?
Today's Weight: 203.7 lbs.
Previous Weight (6/15/18): 205.0 lbs.
So, still happy.
You need to know that I've been keeping a budget since my mid-twenties. Of course, back then, it was a pencil-and-paper affair, but it made sense to me to do it back then - I was living hand-to-mouth, and was stressing over it.
There's also the fact that I have always been 'entertained' by numbers - I'm a mathematics-oriented guy, since failing 10th-grade algebra (story for another time). So working with/playing with numbers has never been a chore for me. My degree is in Mathematics and I graduated summa cum laude.
Still later, I was very taken by the first home finance program, Dollar$ and Sen$e, when it came out. I was thrilled to have my budgeting automated, and by the ability to break a year apart into months. When that program was discontinued, I switched to the competing, adequate-but-not-as-good Quicken (for DOS), and have used it for more than thirty years now.
Bottom line (haha!), I budget.
In the last three weeks, there have been a series of unforeseen budget-busting expenses. Because I've been committed to living within my means (e.g., no debt) for the last decade (my response to the personal financial collapse I experienced in 2007 that culminated in divorce, joblessness and homelessness, and precipitated my move to Syracuse in June, 2008), I sold some stock (which is to say, I dipped into my retirement savings), and will have to sell some more a little later in the year. So, I have handled it.
I'll tell about these financially bad events, and how I responded (well, I've already told you how I responded financially, but there's the psychological element that had to be dealt with). Here's the story:
Three weeks ago, I got the formal invitation to my niece's wedding. It is going to be a big, fancy affair. I got a call from my brother, wanting to know what I thought about it, and had to consider some factors I hadn't: That I would be unable to stay at my sister's (she had a full house with out-of-town people). It became obvious to me that if I didn't help out, my brother and sister-in-law would be unable to attend the wedding. They could not afford a room in the hotel (two-hundred-plus bucks!).
So, I encountered my first unplanned-for expense: An additional trip to Brooklyn, and the cost of an AirBnB apartment. Only a little of that expense had been anticipated in my budget when I first found out about the wedding, before I knew any details. This is some hundreds of dollars I didn't foresee. No blame, but it turned out to be just the beginning.
Next, I had planned on spending some money getting out of Syracuse for the Winter, which meant covering travel costs in next year's budget (I had done this last year, when I bought my ticket and paid for my lodging in Chiang Mai).
Then, I found an incredibly cheap flight to Lisbon, still cheap even after adding the extra airfare from Syracuse, and bought it. Finding good, cheap lodging, though, was difficult - given the longer stay and higher costs, it was three times as expensive as Chiang Mai had been (although the airfare was cheaper). I realized also that my day-to-day living in Portugal would be more expensive as well, but that was next year's problem.
I made changes to my budget, but I was quickly approaching my limit. And I had decided to go back to Chiang Mai as well, and proceeded to book that. Even extending my time to a month, I found a good airfare and AirBnB room that, with some budget manipulation, didn't bust my budget - but definitely left me no slack.
I had booked my Chiang Mai flight around plans to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I thought Mardi Gras was the second Tuesday in March, but after booking my flight and getting my AirBnB (and after a few days had passed, including the long weekend I wrote about last Tuesday), I found out I was wrong about that date, wrong about what I "knew". It turns out the day of Mardi Gras is set by something called the Ecclesiastical moon, some kind of Church nonsense, and the date can vary within six weeks. This year, Mardi Gras is the first Tuesday in March. I'd been off by three weeks! I would be in Chiang Mai when Mardi Gras happened. I'd have to miss it, or re-book.
I made the fiscally irresponsible but culturally necessary decision to re-book. And broke my budget, right there, because that exercise cost me over $400. But I remained true to my priorities, and saw that If I took some cash out of my margin account, I could cover that overage. I didn't like it, but the decision felt right, and was definitely the one that favored happiness.
That was my second unanticipated, un-budgeted expense.
The next hit came by a sad accident. After a night of revelry, including a concert and a birthday celebration, I had a comical and costly accident. Slightly drunk at the end of the evening, I was taking a post-midnight walk on the Creek Walk in downtown Syracuse when my phone rang. Struggling to get it out of my 'murse' in the near dark, it went flying overhead, bounced off a couple of rocks, and ended up in the creek (to all intents and purposes, an open sewer).
I bought a new iPhone the next day, for an out-of-pocket cost $300, and a further additional $30/month, which, after my switch to T-mobile is still less than I was paying for Verizon, but that was one of the things that changed my budget... So it still had an effect.
I had a dentist appointment Thursday, which was free. But I was told I had a broken crown. Saturday morning, I got the reply from my insurance company for my estimated out-of-pocket cost for that: $800.
Saturday night, I met up with band-mates Tami and Brian after a show they did. I was getting impatient waiting for them in the parking lot, and took out my phone to call and make sure they were okay, when Brian tapped me on the shoulder and startled me. I dropped the phone, and shattered my three-day-old screen. Another $180 to repair.
Let's recap: unforeseen expenses for niece Katie's wedding, expensive travel booking error, new phone, dental cost, screen repair. About two grand in unforeseen, unplanned, unbudgeted expenses. Of which, only the dental work was, strictly speaking, necessary.
Yet, at no point did I allow money issues to change my mood. I let go of the immediate anger-anxiety response as each thing happened, and figured out, after coping, how to adjust.
That's what my habitual gratefulness has brought to my life - an unshakable sense of calm and acceptance, and the ability to not let external things determine one's happiness.
Is it weird to be grateful for gratitude?
Food and Diet
Net Loss/Gain: - 1.3 lbs.
Diet Comment
That is a victory! I wanted to come in at 204, and I beat that goal. I admit, I did it without exercising as much discipline as I thought I'd have to, in fact, I had to off-plan meals, and did not refrain from whiskey consumption.
Food Log
Breakfast
3:15pm: Purple-green protein smoothie with coconut-almond milk, kefir, large organic egg, chia gel, kale, spinach, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, celery, whey powder (24g protein), coconut oil, hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, moringa leaf powder, fo ti, cinnamon, turmeric, vanilla extract, Dr. Gundry's Vital Reds and stevia-inulin blend.
Lunch
7:00pm: A Quest bar.
Dinner
12:0am: Chef's salad (Spring Mix greens, pepperoni, Dubliner cheese, shaved parmesan, a hard-boiled egg, walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette). An entire box of sugar-free dark chocolate (when freebies collide with cannabis).
Liquid Intake
3:15pm: Purple-green protein smoothie with coconut-almond milk, kefir, large organic egg, chia gel, kale, spinach, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, celery, whey powder (24g protein), coconut oil, hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, moringa leaf powder, fo ti, cinnamon, turmeric, vanilla extract, Dr. Gundry's Vital Reds and stevia-inulin blend.
Lunch
7:00pm: A Quest bar.
Dinner
12:0am: Chef's salad (Spring Mix greens, pepperoni, Dubliner cheese, shaved parmesan, a hard-boiled egg, walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette). An entire box of sugar-free dark chocolate (when freebies collide with cannabis).
Liquid Intake
Espressos: 1; Coffee: 22 oz.; Tea: 0 oz.; Water: 64+ oz.;
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