16 posts tagged “life”

Whoa, sorry about the lapse.  Things have been awfully busy.  Work demands had me living in soCal for most of November and a big chunk of December and led to my resigning effective mid-January.  I've since begun consulting again, and that's going well.  Debt pay-off is also going very well - overall debt is down to $93k (from a max of $105k), and I've paid off 3 credit cards (two that were incredibly high interest, the third had a low balance).  The average interest rate on my debt is approximately 18%, and the balance is dropping steadily every month.

Being self-employed means having to find my own health insurance, which wasn't too onerous.  I do still need to talk to a CPA to make sure I've set everything up correctly, but I've found a few on-line resources that have been helpful.  Since I don't have inventory or employees, the business and accounting structure is straightforward.  I have to work on rounding up the necessary self-discipline to actually work at paying work instead of playing Scrabulous all day long, but I'm fairly motivated by the stacks of bills.

I'm also participating a group cooking blog:  Is That...Pie?  We just started last month; come take a look.

One last note before I disappear for another 4 months - one of our cats now has diabetes.  Not fun, but hopefully manageable with a change to high protein food.

Photos here.

Even if you do it every year, a person can forget how hard and traumatic moving is.  Things still aren't settled, but progress has been made.

What I can't tell is, are we getting any sleep?  It should have been Heavy Metal Monday last night at the Central, and this morning I couldn't remember hearing any music at all.  Am I living in a hazy fugue state now, brought on by music every night and green flashing lights in the alley at 4 am every morning and not being able to keep the cats off the bed?

It's possible.

That's right, in addition to all the other craziness in our lives, we are moving AGAIN.  This time, to a loft space in Pioneer Square, the heart of downtown Seattle.  Part of the impetus is cost-saving - though the rent is the same as our current space, the utility costs are either included in the rent or more easily controlled.  The utilities for our current space run between $400 and $500/month. 

Another consideration is location.  While our current space is relatively handy to our work (we both are currently working in south Seattle), we find ourselves constantly driving into town, because everything we want to do happens there.  Our current neighborhood will eventually be more convenient to town, once the light rail is running, in 2009.  In the meantime, we are missing the liveliness and possibilities that living urban offers - lots of things in walking distance of the new place (bookstore, library, waterfront, restaurants, bars, clubs, music venues) and the new place is in Seattle's free bus zone, so it's a quick, free trip up to the Pike Place Market and the art museum and a just a bit of a walk to Seattle Center from the edge of the free ride boundary.  We will also be close to the bus tunnel (which is scheduled to re-open this month), so a bus commute to work for either of us will be straightforward.

The new place is directly on the "Ride the Ducks" route and that of the Seattle Underground Tour.  When you come visit, be sure to wave (or quack) near the intersection of 1st and Washington.

All the books, records, and CDs are packed.  We get the keys on Tuesday and the movers are scheduled for the next Monday.  There are many boxes never unpacked from our last move, which beg the question "Can we just throw them out unopened?"

Yesterday, I was asked to write something about why my town is special.  There are so many things I love about Seattle, but I chose to write about the absolutely most mundane:  the weather.

" I live in Seattle, a town that by virtue of geography is special. Lakes and ocean and mountains are all within striking distance; the weather is mild, made temperate by large bodies of water with winds muted by both the Olympic and Cascade ranges. It's a place where people are pleased by the sun, or the appearance of Mt. Rainier in a blue sky,or the way Lake Washington sparkles and froths from a floating bridge. I've lived in other places - the hot and humid, the hot and dry, the cold and icy. In those places, whatever their other charms, the weather was generally seen as an enemy during some part of the year. In Seattle, while it's not exactly an ally, it is never nefarious. It's more of an annoying little brother - the one you have to take with you to the movies or to the park because your mom said you had to. There are times you feel affection for him, and there are times you deny his existence and there are times you roll your eyes at his tantrums. But Seattlites don't have to fight him or fear him, not like they do in tornado alley or the Sonoran desert.  It aids equanimity, to be able to let the weather simply fade to background noise. That is special, and I for one like it."

So, it's one thing to sprinkle a little baking soda under your arms to see how it kills odor.  It's another thing all together to put Secret antiperspirant on after - fizzes like those vinegar and baking soda "volcanoes" people made for 4th grade science fair.

I want to do this.  Someday, I will.

btw - wheeeeeee!   Go RED WINE!!!

I'm to the point of wanting phone everyone we know.  So happy!  So relaxed!  Still able to type (for the most part!)

Conventional wisdom says "pay off the highest interest ones first".

I have enough open on Card A to shift the entire balance of Card H.  I called today regarding the possibility of a balance transfer, and was told NO.  I could however use a convenience check from Card A to pay Card H.

The convenience checks are considered a cash advance, and have an interest rate of 23.99%.  Because this would be paid over, say, 10 years, the interest would be horrendous.  So, the better idea is to just figure out how to pay Card H down to nothing without incurring more debt.

Card E - well obviously, that is the mountain to tackle.  The first step (and why is it so difficult?) to phone them up and see if anything can be done about that usurious interest rate.  Undoubtedly, I agreed to it, which - well, what can you say?

In order to start digging ourselves out, it would probably help to know how deeply we are buried.  Here's partial list as a start:

Card A
Current balance:  15,286.00
Interest rate:  20.31%

Card H
Current balance:  2,241.94
Interest rate:  29.99%

Card E
Current balance:  20,144.14
Interest rate:  30.24%

Card EO
Current balance:  14,414.75
Interest rate:  21.24%

So that's the scary start.  Over $50k at a weighted average interest rate approaching 28%.  And, for me, there are still cards AB, D, UMP, BA, BO1, BO2, and BB.  Mr. Jaq has his own scary set, but the majority of the debt (and the highest interest rates) are on the cards in my name.

Editing to add cards:

Card D
Current balance:  $9,332.25
Interest rate:  16.25%

Card BB
Current balance:  $1,017.48
Interest rate:  22.65%

Card AB
Current balance:  $9,050.52
Interest rate:  13.24%

Card UMP
Current balance:  $13,712.06
Interest rate:  14.99%

Card BO
Current balance:  $12,040.21
Interest rate:  ?%

Card BA
Current balance:  $3,169.84
Interest rate:  21.24%

That's it for my unsecured debt.  A heart-stopping $100k at completely ridiculous interest rates for much of it.  A note:  some of these balances are from December - I'm still sorting out paper copies of bills from after our move.

Back to working in S. Cal., trying to save the planet one molecule of methane at a time.  Makes for seriously long days and limited posting energies.

But today, I didn't go up to the site, wasting the day in the confines of the hotel instead.  I did a little work (I'm putting a simulator together in my spare time), did a little laundry, did a little reading, did a slightly larger amount of thinking, scheming, and planning.

Mr. Jaq and I have too much stuff.  We keep talking about that fact.  We also will be moving (again) in September when our lease is up.  I'm okay with that now (I wasn't for several weeks as the reality was sinking in).  In addition to too much stuff, we also have an extreme amount of debt, due to (among other things) divorce, owning a business for awhile, a love of travel coupled with spendthriftness, spates of self-induced unemployment, and a far too generous nature.  If we want to have a secure future in our upcoming dotage, if we want to leave the smallest monetary legacy for our offspring, we need to get this in hand now.

We began laying out the plan today.  The first step - paring down our stuff, consolidating our storage, selling off what we can part with, and using the funds and savings to make some inroads on our debts. 

Then, I went shopping on-line and bought clothes.  This whole exercise is going to be tough.