Brooklyn Girl's Personal Finance Blog

I think that there is a notion that in an emergency we will immediately cut all unessential expenses -- after all, it is an extreme situation. Most people calculate the emergency fund based on that premise.

But in reality, how many people cancel their cable the day they loose the job? I would say hardly any. You'd be stressed, and cutting things you are so used to will be difficult.

Or assuming that you'll have $0 eating out costs.
If you lost your job, it is one thing, you can stay home and cook the meals for your family.

But if your emergency is a family illness -- you have different challenges and different expenses.
I've been through that -- when you have a relative that is very ill you need to take them to the hospital (gas, time, parking -- parking can really add up), food while there, or eating out after you leave at night exhausted. You can't assume that you won't have ANY eating out costs or miscellaneous costs.

If you are job hunting you'll still need an occasional haircut. When you go for an interview you might need a manicure and a dry-cleaned suit...

Or $0 for vacation. True, it is not the time for vacation, but would you feel guilty if your family can't go anywhere in the summer?

Will you still give money for your child to attend a birthday party or a museum/park/movie with their friends? Not even once a month, the entire summer? Lets be honest, very few people could do that.

Or extra money for gas to go if you are invited to a friends weekend house few hours away? It would be an extremely cheap "vacation" but it does cost something, and it would suck to be forced to pass up on such opportunities at a stessful time for your family.

So what is the solution? To be honest with yourself and include these numbers in the calculations of what you need to live the way you will actually live if an emergency happened.

So I do include these unnecessary expenses in our calculations for "emergency" months, just in case:

$115 cable (because I know we will be resistant to cut it)
$60 street parking in the city
$60 grooming
$120 entertainment common
$120 entertainment personal for DH and me
100 baby's ESA (this is a very limited time opportunity)
$100 eating out
$300 unpredictible (copays, fuel assessment, any small things that pop up. Because things do pop up!)


I budget for these things to be in our emergency fund monthly budget, because I know we are likely to spend it even if someone was unemployed, and that a bare-bones estimate is not realistic.

I refinanced to a 15 year fixed, and asked for a bi-weekly. My credit union is not offering them, but they did it for me because we requested it.

According to calculations, the 15 should be paid of in 13.6 years.

There are no fees for this and the payments are applied immediately, not at the end of the month. The payment is a little higher, but we will save overall.

We were closing on our refi, and man, it was expensive

$41 parking garage for an hour in midtown
$115 ticket for blocking the box. We were unlucky and lucky at the same time. The cop gave us a ticket, but he did not put blocking the box on it, he gave us a parking ticket (no points). the other one would be $300 AND a moving violation on the record
$595 attorney fee

than like $3,000 (interest, title services fee, government recording charges, etc) don't know how much more will still come out of our account.

$17 two sandwiches
$25 favorite pastries - pasteis de nata,
$4.30 few apples and a baguette

I brought my lunch today.

Taxis/bus to and from the airports $237
luggage(skiis and boots) fees $100
airfare -free with points, booking fee $15
Slopeside hotel $0
food and drink for 1 week $831.23
hotel and ski vallet tips $54

demo boots 3 days $70
custom footbed for my ski boots $156
Misc. $20
shopping - amber earrings $77
itunes (ski apps and episodes for plane) $20

lift tickets $1040

Total: $2620.23

For a week of skiing it is not bad and we had fantastic time.
Scary to think how much it would be if we had to pay hotel and airfare!

It was a month rich in both.

Extra expenses -- over $1,400

-$329 coop fuel assessment

-$150 2 no registration sticker tickets (sticker was gone because the windshield was shattered and replaced, but NY state is super fast to ticket and you never win your case

-$66 NY state inspection (to get the new sticker) and car maintenance

-$200 for coop management to sign recognition agreement (for our refi)

-$130 groceries overage

-$300 overage on eating out

-$200 overage on gifts

-$70.00 medical copays

Extra income:

$300 profit from Apple option 2 (taxable as ordinary income, so less than $200 take home)

$3,100 realized gains from the exercised APPLE stock sale (we kept some stock, so we have about $1,600 more unrealized gaines.) Will be taxed at ordinary income tax rate as well

$147 Bonus from credit union on mortgage interest paid

$579 after tax -- $1000 award DH got at work

$600 gift for our vacation from DH's mom

Next week we are closing on our refinance, so we'll have a lot of fees that are not in our regular budget

We were very lucky that taking a big risk with Apple stock options has worked out. This was the first time we did anything like this. We are not doing it again though (at least in a current climate, we don't know of any other reasonably good bet right now.)

Vacation costs are not included at that, since vacation is a special category.

We've been here 3 days already - skiing, going out, being a couple...
I love Vail -- beautiful mountain, long trails, not crowded, awsome back bowls, no ice, just snow, pretty village, lovely weather...

Expensive though. But worth it to us. We are having a fantastic time, I just miss hugging my little one. But i know he is getting great care.

We are staying until Sunday.
I'm keeping spending diary and will post more when we get back -- hard to type too much on the ipad.

DH took the car for routine maintenance at the dealership. He asked them to check why one tire loses air quicker than the other ones.

He was told that there is a nail in the side wall of the tire, and that it will cost $375 to replace the tire ($250 for the tire, $125 for labor). He asked if they could patch it up, they said the nail is in the side wall and it can't be done. He tried to bargain to lower the price a little, but they would not budge.

So he decides to order the tire himself online and see if he can get the labor cheaper in a local auto repair shop. DH estimates we could save close to $100. He also asked for a second opinion.

The local place showed where the nail was (NOT in the side, though close to it) and said they can repair it with no problem. So we ended up paying only $26.

That is a big relief. Again, we are reaffirmed in our belief that unfortunately people in the dealership are crooks at all levels and services .

And the thing is, if they went down in price to even $300-$320 DH probably would have done it and never would have known they lied to him.

We are about to make a gamble - a largest one in our short time of speculative dabbling. And with our first option too.

Our Apple option (370 call) expires 2 days before apple will anounce last quarter profits.

So the only way to bet on those earnings is to exercise and hold the stock for few more days, than we have to sell most of it as soon as the results are announced.

Of course, it is a pretty large gamble.

Do we think Apple made a lot of money last quarter? Sure. But people behave weirdly when it comes to Apple, the stock goes down when apple beats its own projected earnings by a wide margin. Why? because people expect it to beat its projected earnings by an even crazier amount. Public expectations are kind of unreasonable when it comes to this company.

So they may beat their HUGE projected earnings by 25% and the stock may still go down.

What would you do?

Would you sell the option for $2,145 profit right now or exercise at $370 and hold the stock until after the quarterly results are announced? We paid 3,300 for the option.

I'm going crazy. Talked to the doctor, not sure if we should drag him to the ER yet. Gave some acetaminaphen and are now waiting a little longer to see if it will come down. If not, than we are going to the ER. Poor thing, he was only fine for 2 days. Went to daycare and here we are again. But his fever was never that high before!

I went online to transfer money (scraping together some cash in case we can't sell our Apple option and need to exercise) and saw that my vacation account has increased. I know I did not transfer any money, so I was very interested in what happened. Turns out, my credit union gave shareholders end-of-year bonus cashback on mortgage interest paid.

So $147 more for our ski trip!
cool! I completely forgot they do that.

I had a miserable, miserable week. We are all sick with this contagious thing, my throat is all burned and ripped, I had fever, congestion, extreme extreme cough, and a bunch of stomach issues.
We are barely surviving it.

The progress? I have made a huge headway in my weight loss goal -- 10lb lost in 6 days. How? By not eating anything due to being nauseous and throwing up. I can eat "safe" foods now (yesterday and today) but I just don't get pleasure from it at the moment. It does not taste the same. Plus, I kind of got used to not eating much and trying to keep it going.

DH and I are exhausted and miserable. (luckily, baby has gotten better).
We can't sleep until 4-5 am every day due to insane coughing that comes on at night, ripping throat and lungs. Than baby gets up 6-7 am and the day begins again.

We are moving forward with our refinance. We just got a copy of our appraisal report. I was nervous that the property has gone down in value (after all, that is the only direction properties head right now, right?) and we would have to come up with tonn of money to refi. (and have a bad feeling too)

I was very surprised that it was appraised for 16K more than it was 19 month ago, when we bought it (and it did not have furniture, baby toys all over, and baby stuff like activity center, walker, swing all cluttering the apartment and making it look less spacious).

So this was a relief.

And we skipped the super (he is not very helpful, and I don't like him, don't have any business with him, whatever we need assistant super can do with much less long-winded conversation).

And we tipped very modestly (don't make as much money as some in the building, but I'm sure we are not the bottom of the scale).

These are just doormen, porters, maintenance.

Holidays are expensive.

As opposed to high cost of building tips, daycare teachers were only $20 each in Starbucks gift card, not even cash.

DH says there are guildelines as daycare staff are federal employees. I am not sure how closely they are followed, and I wonder if we should have given more, especially after I unrapped gifts made as if from the baby, that they passed us. A handmade ornament with his picture (they printed one out from photographer visit) and bunch of baby books. I don't know if they actually bought them, I feel bad for our small tip if they have. I don't know what to do here.

102.3 fever. Acetamenaphen only manages to bring it down to 101.7.
He is quite sick. Taking him to the doctor again today. The only plus in it being the holidays is that we had one more day home with him without having to take sick/annual leave.

Unfortunately I cannot take leave now, as everyone is out and there is nobody to cover for me.

DH is taking leave again now, and than my mom.

I hope he gets better soon! It seems unending... poor little guy has been through a lot, and I just want him to be happy and feel. He is so sad and weak, and cries a lot. ((

Went shopping for a gift for my mom on my lunch break.

Ended up picking up Shiseido tinted moisturizer with SPF ($35), foaming face wash, ($33) and Biotherm Deo Pure deodorant ($17.50). after 20% discount and plus tax, $74.47. And still I could not find a gift for my mom.

I still have not done my holiday shopping, and I am stumped as to what I can get my mom! What did you get for your mom?

Any ideas/suggestions?
Not make-up of perfume (she has a friend at BG and gets all the high end stuff at 50% off, she has more than enough).
I have given her multiple wallets/purses, hotel nights, iphone 4s... Now I am out of ideas. Starting to panic.

$200 range.

It took us 3 hours to put baby down for his 2 naps, (and they lasted 50 minutes each). These are routine naps that he has every day, but it was so hard today. After an hour and a half of trying everything under the sun -- holding him, rocking him, stroking his back, his hair, I wanted to jump out of the window.

He came so close to falling asleep 3 times, but than at the last second he'd wake up, start crying, and stand up in the crib. Tired, stumbling, he'd still try to stand up...

So whole day was kind of broken up and tough. We didn't have a chance to eat breakfast until 1 p.m. and were even snapping at each other. (can't snap at baby, so it is directed to the next available person). But we got through it.

Started cooking supper at 9:30, after baby went to sleep. I made Ma Po tofu (tofu and ground beef sir-fried in spicy ma po cause over rice. DH also added some more Sichuanese peppercorns.

Just finished washing up the bottles. It is 11:30. Now I can relax a little, but 7 am have to be up. A lot to do at work tomorrow.

Citi "accessories" commercial :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE4bcq8Plzk

It is one of the very few ads on TV that I actually enjoy watching. Everything about it is cool -- the concept, the music, the photography...

The male climber in the video is Alex Honnold, probably the best free solo climber in the world. He does climbs much harder than this with absolutely nothing --no rope, no harness, no equipment or safety net of any kind.

Here is some vids about him:

National Geographic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leCAy1v1fnI

60 minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR1jwwagtaQ

Woke up at 7:15, baby was already crying.

Normally, he waits patiently for 10-15 minutes in his crib while I put his milk to warm and set oatmeal in to cook (that takes about 5 minutes - I have to measure and wash it few times, than peel and slice an apple and set the rice cooker, so that it will be ready in an hour. He barely has willpower to wait -- an hour after waking up he is hungry already, so I need to set it first thing in the morning).

But today was different. I had to do all that with him in my arms. He would cry if I set him down before he had his bottle.

Took care of him until 10:30, than DH put him for a nap and we spent some time together. He napped almost 2 hours, we relaxed.

After baby woke up, DH took him and I went to make breakfast for us. It was kefir based pancakes from scratch. They are fluffy and delicious, and thats a treat for myself. But I discovered I was all out of regular flower, so I had to use whole wheat flower, and while I do prefer whole grains in everything else, pancakes with whole wheat just don't taste as good.

Baby had a pancake as well, that's his junk food for the weekend (it is not completely terrible, I made it with org. kefir, eggs, whole wheat flower, a tiny bit of milk, a sliver of butter, baking power and baking soda, salt, and 2 spoons of sugar for the whole batch.

We all ate together, baby in his chair at the table.

I took baby, DH cleaned up.

Than I run 1.7 miles again. I'm very proud of myself and I do feel more energy.

After I was done, DH run for 45 minutes (he is in a much better shape).

My mom came to visit after 4. I hit the shower, used computer for 20 min and got ready to leave.

Left house at 5 and went shopping in NJ.
All I bought was a simple, cheap box from West Elm (the color matches my furniture) and I wanted a small box to keep jewelry that I set aside to wear in the morning, so that I don't have to search for it when I have to run.
$19 total + tax (and $17 toll)



Then to our favorite Korean place in Fort Lee $53:







Not healthy, but quite tasty. And, since we were on the other side of that toll already, hard to resist the opportunity.

Than quick grocery shopping $72 and one quick beer each at the Dinosaur BBQ ($12):



Today their Dinosaur ale was fresh and perfect, great temperature, crisp, delicious. It is very close in taste to Magic Hat #9 and today it was even better than #9.

Back home by 10 pm (mom had to leave). We were kind of rushing everywhere, but that is how it is. We try to fit as much as we can in whatever little time we have.

Oh, and I have cleaned nothing today.

Woke up 7:20. Took care of the baby until 8:30. Got ready for work and run to the train. Bought coffee and mini-croissant near work, had it at the desk.

Chinese brush painting class at lunch.

Lamb over rice from the street cart at the desk. Working hard on an unpleasant complicated task the rest of the day. Will have to go through tons of paperwork for days to have it done. Also, my co-worker is leaving for a 3 week vacation, so I will be alone doing what is normally divided between us.

Leave work at 6, home by 7pm. Play with the baby for an hour and a half.

Run 1.7 miles as husband was putting baby to sleep. (Just enough to get metabolism going).

Than at 9pm we start cooking. We cooked together -- chunky guacamole (diced tomato, onion, minced garlic, cilantro, serranos, and of course, avocado. All salted, peppered and eaten with baked tortia chips.) Not a diet meal by any stretch, but very good nutritionally.

Done eating by like 10:20. Than washing up kitchen and battery of baby bottles, Baby Cook, bibs, spoons tethers, the works. (I don't put any of the baby's stuff into the dishwasher).

Done washing up at 11:40. 20 minutes to take off make-up, brush teeth, sit around.
Now spending 10 min to blog/read, than some time with DH, will probably go to bed at 1-1:30 am again.

Waking up at 7-7:30 tomorrow. And like that every day. Baby knows no weekends.

Must clean something in the apartment tomorrow, it looks out of control.

I NEVER have enough sleep. We must be doing something wrong. DH works just as hard when it comes to work, house, and the baby, and yet both of us are always so tired.

Hit and miss today.

Good:
lunch. I walked 10 minutes to a nice Japanese lunch place (just noodles and rice bowls) I recently discovered. In a land where a sandwich is $8-$10 plus tax (which makes it almost 11), this $5.50+tax=$6 beef rice bowl is a real bargain!



I had it with water, and no desert. So there.

Bad:
Dinner out. Tried a new place which was highly recommended. The food sucked even though it was high calorie, high fat meal. Beer was good though.
$52

Sigh
Got to do better

Not even because I really really want to eat out. It is just we want to spend time by ourselves.

The only way we get to do that is when my mom visits for few hours to take care of the baby. 7-9pm on a weekday and one day on a weekend.

That's after work, it is dark outside, it is cold and empty (not a time for walks in deserted parks).

We are tired, we need to eat. Staying and cooking in the apartment is not too great. My mom is using our tiny kitchen to making dinner for baby. We can only eat in the living room and baby will be trying to climb us and demand to try what we have. Plus, her husband is usually there too... So we go out because it is a break, because we get to take a breath, spend time together. Food is secondary (though I do like a nice draft beer, like Magic Hat #9 or a nice margarita). So while I do not have that urge to eat out for the sake of food we do it often because it is a matter of opportunity. And the costs are pretty high.

So I really want free (First class woudl be a dream!) tickets to Asia this year.

New York - Singapore - Shanghai (than Nanjing by land) - Shanghai- new York

Getting low-mileage award to Asia in July is next to impossible. But I've been educating myself on ins and outs of award booking and still hold out hope.

I need more Delta miles. My avenues for getting miles:

1) Convert miles at 1:1 from Marriott points
https://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi#packages
It is the easiest and free option. BUT... we don't know how many miles we will need and how many we'll actually use. With airlines you don't know until the last minute. On the other hand Marriott points are very hustle free and easy to use. They don't stick you with fees, you can always change your reservation, customer service on Platinum line is great, and we had nothing but positive experience and I don't remember last time we paid for a hotel. If we transfer 120K and use 210K for a week in Vail, we will hardly have anything left. We won't even have enough for 5 days in Singapre. But airline points are worth more (if you can use them, that's the big if).

2) We can also open a Delta amex to get some miles, but that will take months (need to complete our refinance first) and by the time miles get deposited it may be too late to book tickets, all award awailability will be gone.

3) We can transfer 25,000 miles I have to DHs account. Right now they have a promotion where they give you 100% bonus for transferring, so that will increase DHs miles by 50,000. But, that will cost us $310. Is it worth it?

Have you ever been told that? Drives me crazy. Especially coming from a person who makes about twice as much.

What unattainable luxury was it in responce to? 3 extra month leave without pay to stay with my baby when he was a newborn.

I responded "no, we just planned for it". But that not understood. It was still insisted that I was "rich". I have heard this phrase before. It always drives me crazy. Because a lot of careful planning goes into getting those things (carefull managing of rewards programmes, tonn or research and price comparisons on big-ticket items, plain old saving for them, etc...) that are being dismissed by this phrase.

And I think I could understand if it was coming from a person who made a lot less money, but it usually is not the case, it comes from people who make more!

Do you ever hear that phrase?

When you are an always tired parent of a small baby you have no time and a huge backlog of tasks that must be done.

And I spend the last 2 days doing something hard that I don't expect any return from what so ever. I entered a competition and was working on my submission. I have no chance of winning (I am competing against top of the field professionals who do this every day all day long and I have no experience.) And, there is no prize or anything.

Hours and hours of hard work and anxiety about it. Why did I do it? I don't know. DH was extremely supportive and took care of the baby evening to night. Why? Because he wanted me to try, even if I fail. Going outside comfort zone and attempting something new is an important step.

And I do feel a little different today, after submitting it. This year I won't say "I should have entered". I did. I guess this is the reward. Because this is the type of person I want to be.

He looks so big in these pictures. I can't believe how fast he is growing. 13 month and he is walking now! Cutely, wobbly, but walking

$1,042
Lift tickets for 2 people. (crazy)

$15 fee for booking airfare for two people NYC-Vail Eagle

$0 Seven nights slopeside at Marriott Vail

I had to buy lift tickets now, because season pass (that you could buy until the end of the month only) costs the same as 6 days of skiing (which we were planning to do. That gives us the option, to go 2nd time in spring, if we really really love it and can come up with the money and for the second trip hotel, airfare and lift tickets would be free).

After hours of research of bus routes on municipal website I discovered that there is a bus that stops at the airport and goes to Vail Village (it was obscure and nowhere on travel websites, because airport is not its final destination did not come up on search engines). But now, our trip from Eagle airport to the hotel will drop from $120-160 one way to $8.

Just today he went from cruising everywhere to making 3-4 steps and happily falling into my arms!

He is so cute and so excited about his new ability! Laughing and clapping in delight. He was doing it until he was completely exhausted.
Than he fell asleep without a peep.

Seeing your baby walking for the first time is just an amazing feeling! I was on cloud nine tonight.

Many more rooms to go. Closet that is outside the bedroom not included. It needs the status of the room in terms of work. I really want to finish things before January!











Light changes a lot in sunset.

I was washing the floor today and notice that there is a bunch of hole going all along our bedroom wall (the wall that does NOT have any furnishings or rugs near it. These are small, but very numerous. There are dozens of them:







They are each the size of a think staple. I don't know how the heck they got there, they were not there before. The only explanation is that the neighbor downstair (I'm guessing their contractor) did it during the renovations.

We will go and talk to them tomorrow. The thing is, I don't know what to do or what to ask of them? I've never encountered a situation like this before :0

On one hand, asking them to replace entire hardwood floor, it kind of ... well, very expensive. On the other hand, this will affect our resale value. And, it is impossible to replace part of the hardwood floor and make it seamlessly blend with the rest.

And I don't want to create antagonistic situation with neighbors, but this is really bothering me. The floors are damaged.

I don't know what to do.

I have to talk to them tomorrow - just because I don't want this to happen in other rooms and along other walls. They have to know about it, so I can't postpone. But, I don't know what exactly we should demand they do about it. What do you think is reasonable?