I've been too busy to post much of late, but do check in periodically to see how the people I've gotten to know here are doing.

This summer isn't the crisis of last summer, when I had no paycheck and was trying to live off savings--but on the other hand, I'm trying to build up the emergency fund to prepare for a 23% drop in salary in September. I've got to cut expenses now so I don't go into debt then! And whatever I can save will go into the emergency fund.

The first month of summer has led to some overspending--which is typical of me. I get so busy the end of the term that I start eating out more, and I'm exhausted when vacation first begins, so it takes a while to get back into cooking. Actually, I only had a week of time off, since I'm teaching this summer (hence the summer income). And I'm taking a class. So I've spent money on books, a postponed home repair, a postponed vet visit for Henry, and 6 weeks' worth of training classes with a person to get me back into shape after having not exercised for a few months. After only two weeks the persistent pain in my Achilles tendon is gone, and the frozen shoulder is beginning to loosen up, so it's a worthwhile investment.

Now that I have only two more paychecks at my "regular" pay before the big decrease, I've got to focus on cutting expenses as much as possible, so I'll be hanging out around here again.

Back when I lived in the next town over, there was a nice consignment store that I used to shop routinely. But that store burned down 3 years ago, and then I moved. I haven't bought very many clothes in the past couple of years, but what I have bought has been primarily Lands End clothing, bought at Sears when on sale.

Last week, my friend Anne & I were talking, and she told me about some stores that she knows in another nearby town. Today we went, since Anne is shopping for some new outfits for work. I'm not particularly in "need" of anything (other than of 1. losing the 12 pounds I gained recently to fit better into most of my clothes and 2. a warddrobe update--lots of my dresses and skirts are over 10 years old and work outfits that seemed fine in my early 30s doesn't feel appropriate to my mid-40s), so I looked at what was available. I found two sweaters (identical style, different colors), a scarf, and a pair of earrings, all purchased for $39, that work towards the "wardrobe updating" goal.

Now that I know about these two stores, I'll chek them out a few times a year as I continue updating.

And tomorrow I officially launch a diet to see if I can lose the 12 pounds by summer.

Didn't mean to abandon this blog, but life has been busy.

Quick update:

-Henry the $$$ Hound has been doing ok, thank god. I worry because he's gained so much weight while on the prednisone (from 67 to 80 #s), but I'm beginning to cut the prednisone back (for the second time...tried it around Thanksgiving and he wasn't ready yet, but so far so good this time--knock on wood!!!).

-Back at work, of course. I'm taking a course as well as teaching three. I'm auditing the course, actually, since I already have credit for it on the books from this past summer when I took it via Distance Learning at the Community College. But such a difference having a class in person makes! I'm seriously contemplating changing programs to complete my Accounting Certificate at this college rather than at the community college. The courses cost 3x as much but there are fewer of them--I think it would cost about $4400 (vs $2400) if all the credits transferred. But the difference could well be worth it. More in a later entry.

-It looks like I most likely have 3 classes in place to teach for the fall (plus one over the summer) as an adjunct--which means that I should be able to pay the basic bills but things will be extremely tight. My usual monthly expenses the past year or so have been $3000/month, and this should bring me in $2880/month...but if I'm adjuncting, my COBRA health insurance will add about another $270 beyond the $100/month I currently pay to the bills, so there will be a lot of skimping and cutting, and I'll be saving as much as possible now and praying with all my heart that Henry (and the cats) stay healthy.

But at least having that income in place for the year means that the anxiety and depression of December have mostly disappeared.

And I anticipate some income beyond that as well--for one thing, there's still some possibility that another full-time renewal will open up here if their current attempt to do a new hire falls through (as has happened in the past)--I'll know within the month. And the big one is that, inspired by the course I'm taking, I'm going to look for a summer internship in accounting and start making this attempted career change seem more real. Get myself out of the classroom and into the "real world." I'm such an ivory tower type that this is a bit terrifying, but right at the moment the excitement is higher than the fear factor, so that's good.

26. I worked during college as a proofreader/copy editor for a professional academic journal. The editor actually tried to hire my *mother,* who was primarily a book indexer and reference librarian. My mother said that I was the one who did all of *her* editing, so the editor gave me a test and then hired me.

27. Also during college I hired myself out as a statistical consultant to graduate students in clinical psychology who were math phobic. I had taken a year's worth of statistics as an undergrad and had taught myself SPSS and BMDP from the manuals, and I ended up doing the analyses for two dissertations. Sometimes I think about going back and getting an M.A. in statistics now.

28. When I was in high school, my school was very active in a state-wide program called "Reform in School Education" (RISE) that involved groups of faculty, administration, students and community members to come up with suggestions for improvement. I was active all through high school and my senior year was the city-wide representative for high school students for this program.

29. Later on in college I continued my involvement in educational policy: I served as the undergraduate "Research Coordinator" for the Student Educational Policy Commission at UCLA and once made a presentation in front of the faculty senate that successfully convinced them to make a policy change.

30. Three dreams that I want to pursue at the point where I need to spend less time earning money are to get involved in local history organizations (I am fortunate to live in an area where there is a lot of pre-Revolutionary War history around), to get involved in local politics, and to become much more involved in making music.

31. I've been involved for 6 years in a local voluntary simplicity support group that meets for monthly potlucks.

32. I am Jewish by birth but went through a serious Buddhist phase in my early 30s. I went on a meditation retreat the result of which was an insight that it was time for me to explore my Jewish roots, which I promptly did. I was very active in the congregation that I joined for the next five years. More recently, I have found that most of my friendships are with Quakers (via the simple living group) and my lapsed-Catholic sweetie and I have agreed that if we get married we will join the Friends meeting.

33. I have a wealthy cousin in NYC. One of my fond memories from graduate school is visiting NY, where I stayed at the YMCA and had them move my room several times until I found a floor where there were mostly students rather than down-on-their-luck men, and then going to meet my cousin for lunch at Sardi's, where he was greeted by name by the maitre-de, and for dinner at another restaurant, where his wife was telling me about how sitting on the *first* floor was de-riguer while the *second* floor seating was declasse--when who comes sweeping down from the second floor but Bernadette Peters, who was at that time starring on Broadway in "Sundays in the Park with George." The trip was a vision in contrasts.

34. Three of my favorite places in the world: a patch known as "Henry's Woods" in the local state park, where a plot of conifers stand by a stream and create a cathedral-like space; the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of art; and the 17-mile drive in northern California (though the latter is sadly developed compared with what I remember from my childhood memories).

35. I've had the honor of standing on the Supreme Court dias. An old boyfriend worked as a clerk for Justice Rehnquist back in the late 1980s and he took me on a tour of the building including the courtroom and up on to the dias when I visited him while I was in D.C. for a job interview.

36. I went to a nursery school run by a bunch of psychoanalysts since my mother was in psychodynamic therapy at the time. No wonder I turned out rather neurotic!

I see that while I've been busy grading and tending Henry, many of you have been posting interesting lists about yourselves. I'm still catching up on reading those. In the meantime, here's mine. Only 25 items...I'm not *that* interesting.

Twenty-five things you may not know about me

1. I was born in Hollywood.

2. I play the flute. Quite well in fact. I've played duets with the principal flutist of the Oregon Symphony and performed on stage with members of the Albany Symphony.

3. When I was a child, I lived near the abandoned set for "Hello Dolly." Although there was a "No Trespassing" sign, the gate was loosely locked and it was easy for a 10 year old to sneak inside, which I did several times that year.

4. I have a PhD in social psychology and did a post-doctoral fellowship in personality & psychopathology.

5. I am taking classes towards a post-BA certificate in accounting (all the requirements for an accounting major, minus the general BA requirements).

6. I was given a stuffed Basset Hound (Cleo for the People's Choice bassest) when I was born and got my first "live" basset at six. Henry is my third basset, or fourth if I count the dog whom I fostered for a year but did not adopt because of aggression problems.

7. I'm still good friends with the first boy I ever had a crush on.

8. I once went white-water rafting on a Class III river in Alaska (this is SO not me....this was only because of that then-boyfriend of mine).

9. I've done 3 driving trips back and forth across the country, taking a different route each time.

10. I've seen 40 of the 50 states--almost all the exceptions being in the Deep South (plus Hawaii).

11. Despite loving to travel, the only places I have been outside the USA are in Eastern Canada (Toronto, Montreal, and thereabouts).

12. I once spent 7 weeks in a hospital. I did not eat during that time (until the last day) but was fed intravenously.

13. I learned Transcendental Meditation at age 13.

14. I took tennis lessons starting at age 8. Never did master the game.

15. I was kicked out of swimming school at age 3 for calling my teacher a "bastard."

16. I took Yoga for gym class during high school.

17. I met my sweetie when he taught a class called "Creativity for Non-Artists." Nothing happened during that first year I took the class from him (my mind was on getting ready to move out of the area), but when I moved back, I learned that he still had kept two of the little sculptures I'd made in class and had them on top of his refrigerator...unusual for him. The relationship has always felt like fate.

18. I've lived for 23 years in California, 6 in Michigan, 3 in Vermont, and 14 in Pennsylvania.

19. I decided to become a social psychologist before I ever took a class in the subject, and to move to the East Coast before I'd ever been there for the first time.

20. I am also very active online on a Walking discussion board and my regular walking buddy is the former "walking editor" for a national health publication. (She provides great incentive to keep me going!)

21. I lost 95 pounds one year. Gained about half of it back, though, in the subsequent 7 years. Still much better than where I was!

22. I made my first money working as a street performer. The old Los Angeles County Museum of Art had a big plaza on which street performers gathered each Sunday. A friend of mine and I went each week and earned quite a lot of money for our efforts--probably because we were by far the youngest performers there. (Late edit: we played flute duets.)

23. I used to teach at an environmentally oriented liberal arts college, where my proudest achievement was developing a new course called "Simplicity & Sustainability."

24. More recently I taught a class called "The Psychology of Money and Happiness."

25. I firmly believe that the best way to learn something is to teach it. Thus I'm not an expert on much of what I teach; more an impassioned learner.

When I picked up one of my old financial planning books ("How to get what you want in life with the money you already have"), a piece of paper fell out, and on it was my budget from January 1998. Interesting to compare now and then.

My circumstances are very different: I live in a different state, have a different job, own a house rather than rent, am now in a committed relationship, and I have three pets rather than one. I'm still adjusting my budget to new circumstances since some of these changes (home & two of the pets) are fairly recent, but still, the comparison is interesting.

I make about 60% more--but that's both because I'm at a higher paying job and because I have a second part-time job in addition to the main job, which I didn't before. So taxes of course are proportionately higher. And I save more (30% more) and give more to charity (117% more), but my gift-giving has stayed about the same (I'm a notoriously bad gift-giver, alas).

Going from renting to owning makes a huge difference--my monthly housing + utility expenses have gone up from about $700 to about $1022, a 46% increase--but at least I'm building equity now. Household expenses are up, too, from $20 to $50/month as there's more to buy with a house, especially as a new owner--plus that includes repairs, which I never had to worry about before.

The other big increase is education expenses. I've gone back to school the past three summers, working very slowly on getting a certificate in accounting to add to my credentials. Mostly I take these classes at the community college, but just this year, I finally qualified to take classes for free at one school that I teach at, so that is helping hold those costs down some.

My grocery expenses are up about 24%, but eating out expenses have held steady. That increase could be accounted for by inflation--plus here in PA, I have much nicer grocery stores available to me on a weekly basis than I did when I lived in rural VT, so I buy somewhat more upscale ingredient indulgences--one of the ways I hold down the restaurant expense.

Transportation costs are up 52%--I have a newer car, but when I lived in VT, I lived literally right across the street from where I worked, so I only drove my car to do errands on the weekends and to travel. Now I commute 16 miles daily--but I also travel less. That is reflected in a nearly 80% *decrease* in my entertainment expenses (since I budgeted in travel with entertainment). Owning a home and 3 pets and having a relationship--not to mention more than one job!--I've become much more of a homebody than I was.

The other big decrease in my spending is in my "unreimbursed business expenses." As an academic, I can justify many of my nonfiction book purchases as research materials, and I used to do so quite a bit more than I do now. I still spend about $50/month on books and films for use in research and teaching--but I used to spend about three *times* that amount, so that's a big decrease.

So--lots of increases, a couple of decreases. I do miss the travel and "culture-vulturing" I used to do, and some day will have to do more of it again. The biggest increase over the past several years has been in my overall net worth, so that is satisfying.

I didn't have too many struggles with money until I finished graduate school and entered the working world. My first year out, I had a postdoctoral fellowship, and I managed to spend almost twice what I earned and when I got a "real job" the next year, I started my career over $13,000 in debt. For the first 3 or 4 years, I just paid the minimum balance due, and then it hit me that my debt wasn't going down. I started reading about personal finance, including Your Money or Your Life, got a consolidation loan and started paying my debt down. It took a couple of years, but by the time I'd left my first job, I'd not only gotten rid of the debt but started saving 10% of my salary in a retirement fund.

At my next job, I also managed to save up a significant amount towards a downpayment for a house. However, I had a bout with an illness that landed me in the hospital for two months, cost me two surgeries and six months of unemployment, and led me to make the decision to get off the "fast track" towards my career and worry more about my life as a whole. The experience also ended up eating up the downpayment fund.

Successes I've had so far in changing habits:
--I spend much less on books than I used to and frequent the library much more often
--I eat out less than I used to, but I still could make a lot more progress
--I pretty regularly save 10% or more of my salary (which varies tremendously year to year depending on my job situation...I've saved up to 27% of my salary in flush years but have had a couple of years where I've lived close to the bone and eaten into the emergency fund instead of adding to it).
--I've put most of my bill-paying on auto-pilot, so I don't get hit with the late fees I used to incur about once a year in the past.
--I finally was able to buy a house this past year, due to the generosity of my mother, who gifted me the downpayment money. This brings the total housing expenses up a bit from what they were, but now I have equity, plus the rents in this area are rising rapidly and it won't be long before my expenses as a homeowner will be less than what they were as a renter.