Dear Bon Appetit,
Surely you are totally insane. Ice cream maker? Potato masher? Juicer? Cardboard cake rounds?
Here is a tip, Bon Appetit: if there is a cheap and easy substitute for something (i.e. dried beans=pie weights, should one ever need pie weights, or saucepan+metal bowl=double boiler), it is not a kitchen essential. Additionally, why would you recommend two tools for the same job (microplane grater & zester)? Also, no one uses basters, ever, and interestingly enough, anything heavy will serve as a meat mallet. I use my fists. And unless you're serving ten or more people on a regular basis, a square cake pan lined with foil makes a handy roasting pan. It fits a five-pound chicken or roast. I can tell you from experience.
All told, the number of kitchen "essentials" I do not own? Thirty-one. Thirty-one. And I do more cooking than most people I know. I know that we're talking about a "well-stocked" kitchen here, for someone who has a particular interest in cooking, but seriously, Bon Appetit. Get real.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Overstocked Kitchen
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Frugal Spice Rack
After some interest in my DIY spice rack, I thought I'd explain what I've done to solve the spice-storage problem in a small kitchen. I've created a frugal, infinitely customizable, and extremely effective little DIY spice rack with very little effort and not much money.
Hanging things on walls is a classic space-saving technique, and it's also really nice, if you're a cook, to have your herbs and spices ready to hand. I keep all my regular-use ingredients (oils, vinegars, salts, etc.) in a convenient stoveside cabinet, but it doesn't have space for a ton of spice bottles, and who wants to rummage around amongst all those bottles anyway? (Also, spice bottles are pretty irritating in and of themselves: if you want to measure, you have to pull off the little plastic shaker top, which often puts up a fight.) So I started looking for spice racks to mount on the wall, and just didn't like the offerings: most of them are either faux-rustic or scary stainless steel monstrosities, and neither would look right in my kitchen. And while I was looking, I encountered the idea of a magnetic spice rack.
The problems with most commercial magnetic spice racks are two:
1) The tins have clear lids. Herbs and spices lose their flavor more quickly when they are exposed to light, so this kind of storage is a bad idea. It's not so bad when you're keeping your clear bottles in a cabinet, but when you keep them out, you shorten their lifespan and increase the probability of having to throw out and replace old spices.
2) They almost invariably have the wrong number of tins. For the kind that's just a magnetic bar, that's not a big deal, but an empty tin or no tin in the kind of magnetic spice rack that has a specific seat for each tin is liable to drive a certain type of person (uh, me) totally crazy.
3) They're expensive. They can run $40 for a rack to hold 12 tins, and I have more than 12 spices and may acquire more.
4) The tins often come pre-labeled with ridiculous things like "burger seasoning" or "tabasco garlic salt" or something else I'll never actually own. Sometimes they include the corresponding spices, which just creates waste.
But the concept, I realized, is easily duplicated and improved upon if you do it yourself. You buy tins (without clear lids), you stick magnets to the tins, you fill the magnet-tins up with spices, label them, and stick them on the refrigerator (I'm using the side of my refrigerator facing my countertops). This gives you the power to customize your spice rack and saves you money. A 12-tin magnetic rack can run you $35-50; my DIY solution costs about $30-$35 for 20 tins.
A tin is cheap: a 4-ouncer, big enough to hold most to all of the contents a regulation-size spice bottle (depending on what exactly the contents are), is $.71 at Specialty Bottle. I actually bought mine in a batch of 20 from Etsy's "supplies" category, because the shipping was cheaper. Twenty tins plus shipping cost me $26. I already had craft magnets and glue, but they're quite reasonable, too (like $1.29 for a pack of 8 when I bought them, and I bet you can get them cheaper), and can be found in almost any craft store (might be cheaper at a hardware store). You need a pretty powerful magnet: mine are 3/4" in diameter and pretty thick. I started with one magnet per tin, but find that two, spaced across the tin, work better.
Now, I'm a wee bit concerned, as I would be with any magnetic spice storage, that I'm accidentally going to pull the lid and not the rest of the tin off at some point, leading to an enormous, spicy mess, but using thick magnets here seems to be a plus: it gives your fingers a logical place to grip (between the tin and the fridge) that prevents spills. We'll see how this goes. If I run into trouble, I may recreate the idea with twistlug tins, which aren't available in a flat 4oz. size, but are available in a flat 3oz. size, which is just about as good (especially if you buy your spices from bulk suppliers and can buy exactly the amount you need).
Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about this solution. It's low-maintenance, adaptable, and frugal. With a little added attention (K is thinking he'll make cool images for the lids), it can be really great-looking, too.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Government Cheese: Yummy!
My stimulus check arrived last night! (And, by the way, seemed to have been mail-forwarded, so...who knows.) I'm way psyched. After much financial turmoil the last couple of months, this check will let me finish my little spurt of moving-in spending and stash some extra cash. I'm splitting it right down the middle: half for saving, half for spending.
Saving: The $300 infusion will bring my Freedom Fund to $8,600--huzzah! I projected out my savings for the rest of this calendar year, and found that if all goes as expected, I'll end up with $10,875, so I'm going to work on trying to find the extra $125 somewhere to make it a round $11,000. Shouldn't be too hard.
Spending: An extra cabinet for the bathroom, tins for spices (I have this awesome DIY spice rack idea revolving around 4-oz. tins, magnets, and the side of my refrigerator), cork pours, a mirror, supplies for my DIY charger station plan, perhaps some sort of non-shoebox filing system idea. And good gin for my housewarming party. Maybe, maybe, if there is money left over, the $30-including-shipping jar of Blenheim apricot jam that I covet from welovejam.com (I'm an apricot-preserve fiend. Like a zombie, but "aaaaapricots!" instead of "braaaaaains!").
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Couples, Money, and Moving: Just a Thought
I just had a great idea, and I wish K and I had done this for our moving-in process (I guess there's still time, actually...maybe I'll discuss it with him). We've bought a ton of little, under-$20 kinds of things: drawer organizer, doorstop, shelf extender, skillet, curtains, etc., not to mention the big Ikea run we did, and it's really been difficult to keep track of the money side of it--who owes whom what. Next time around, what I'd do is this: at the outset, go halfsies on a gift card to the store where you do the bulk of your shopping (Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Home Depot, wherever). That way, when someone needs to pick something up, they just take the gift card and go, and no accounting is necessary.
But our new place is starting to look really beautiful! I'm almost ready to invite people over for a housewarming party (not that more than 15 people will be able to fit at the same time...), and I do think that spending some money to get moved in comfortably and in an aesthetically pleasing way has been worth it. (Remind me I said that when I have to dip into savings to pay my credit card bill.)
Friday, June 27, 2008
Oh, Summer
Okay, I've figured out the summer spending thing: half the problem is that when I leave work, it doesn't feel like the day is over. It's light and beautiful outside, and I find myself wanting to take walks, go to movies, get drinks with friends, drink iced coffee...you know, money-costing things. I am heartily disinclined to just head home to make dinner and curl up with a book.
With that in might, I think I might be able to begin planning for that--there's a big difference between going for a walk, having a packed picnic with a friend, and getting a drink and eating an impromptu dinner out and then paying $11.50 (!) for a movie ticket. Not that I'm going to stop seeing movies entirely, of course, but if I acknowledge this not-going-home-after-work-in-the-summer preference and try to work with it, I may be able to save some money without negatively influencing my enjoyment & social life.
One thing I think is going to be important is packing a couple of afternoon snacks--that way, I won't have to buy food out if I just want to take a walk or sit around Union Square for a bit. I had a Clif Nectar bar yesterday that I tried out on a whim from my new local supermarket, and really liked it--carrying around a couple, plus maybe an apple and a hardboiled egg (obviously can't just leave that in my bag like a bar, but still) should get me pretty far.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Mental Math (Just a note to myself...)
So, my current credit card bill: $707. I just transfered $350 over there from checking ($200 from my last slush pile freelance check, $150 that should be budgeted, for a nutritionist session). K owes me $210 from our Ikea run. I'm returning two pairs of shoes and a dress. Covered.
Now the trick is hoping I haven't done too much damage to the checking account itself...I've been eating out a lot.
Uh-Oh
I'm getting to the point where I dread rebooting my financial system after the move and a lengthy period of computer outage. It really is different when you're not checking in every day--scarier, more confusing, and thus, somehow, far easier to go, "Oh, maybe I haven't really spent too much--buying this CD is fine."
That means to me that it's time to reboot promptly, which means spending the money to get myself a new laptop battery and charger. Ugh. But I'm sure it'll be a win in the long term, because a girl could run herself into the ground like this. I hate to put yet another hundred bucks on my credit card bill--this month has surely been my highest ever--but I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it in the long run.
This urge to bury my head in the sand is strong, and it makes me queasy. For me, every day I go without getting back on track makes it a little harder, a little more overwhelming to finally do so. So the sooner the better. I'm taking my laptop in tomorrow.
Wish me luck.
Monday, June 16, 2008
An Open Letter
Dear Management Company of My Old Apartment,
Yes, I am going to call every day until I get an inspection scheduled, because I am working under the theory that you are not going to release my security deposit until said inspection takes place. Yes, I have called seven or eight times already. Yes, I do plan on making an unflaggingly polite nuisance of myself. Yes, I am willing to be on a first-name basis with everyone in your office. Yes, I am also willing to show up in person if need be. You owe me upwards of $1,800, and I am going to get it back, so don't count on me forgetting and going away anytime soon.
Love,
English Major
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Everyone is leaving or moving. I feel like I am standing still, even though I am moving too. We put the beautiful old oak table my mother gave us up on casters. It's perfect. My sister is in Cameroon, trying to learn the local dialect, drinking beer in the square, working with the fifty wives of the local chief. My parents are in Madrid for a few days before they head on to Italy, where they'll be through the summer. I am in my office. One friend's email offers her room for sublet (she is moving to Israel), another friend's email announces she has moved from Washington Heights to the Upper East Side (we are out of touch; I wonder if she's making lots more money, suddenly). I am in my office. Yesterday I could not help buying fruit; a pound of cherries and a pound and a half of grapes cost $9; the cherries were gone before we reached home. There is a brightness to the sweet of fruit that is never cloying. It is summer. I bought sundresses and open-toed flats. Should we go to IKEA this weekend or wait until the Red Hook one opens next week? My intern asked me what my secret talent is; I said that I don't have one. (This was a lie, so I mumbled about writing things.) (I could never say, I am a writer. I am not working on a novel. I am not working on anything, except work, sort of. I think I am stagnating.) (Please, don't let me stagnate.) Two or three nights ago, I emerged from the train station just as the heat-breaking rain was ending, and a cool breeze came down Eastern Parkway, and all the people coming up from underground sighed together in pleasure.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Just Pick Up and Keep Going
My life is really full right now, and I apologize for the lax posting schedule. I'm skipping the end-of-May update and will just update at the end of this month. That's usually my strategy for these kinds of things, when possible: don't try to get caught up, lest you get overwhelmed and fall further behind. Just pick up and keep going.
I'm in a similar position with my actual finances, mostly because my computer is giving me no end of trouble. The battery is dead, and the charger is dubious--I think I just need to suck it up and have them replaced, in the same vein as the previous item: don't keep pretending that you're going to live with an obstacle that's clearly proving a deterrent to getting the things you need to do done. Just change what needs to be changed and move on. I'm getting the battery replaced tomorrow, and then I'm going home and updating my finances. I think I'm still within the right spending range, but it's tight, definitely.
(For me, the real cost of moving has been food. Because I've had so little kitchen access, and no pots and pans and dishes until two days ago, I've been buying every meal out, and we all know how expensive that can be. I'm going grocery shopping today. I'm happy to eat omelets and chickpea salad for dinner for the next week. I actually kind of think that would be delightful.)
In a similar vein, I'm setting myself a deadline: if I haven't listed the four pairs of shoes, one dress, one blazer, and one pair of jeans I've earmarked for eBay sales by the end of this weekend, I'm taking them to iSoldIt! on Monday. Period. End of story.
In a blog news update, you'll notice I dropped Google's text ads (the second I got to the payout amount) and picked up BlogHer (definitely prettier, and pays per impression rather than per click). We'll see how it goes.
Friday, May 30, 2008
The IRS, the USPS, and You
Just FYI, if you happen to be in the same situation I am with the stimulus payment (i.e. moving before you're supposed to receive it), you need this page of the IRS handbook, which I stumbled onto by sheer luck. Filling out a mail forwarding form (which you can do online for $1 here) does not forward your government documents, so you need to alert government agencies separately.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Come Back, Money!
Money is running through my fingers like water at the moment--it's the move. Gassing up my parents' Volvo, with which we're running stuff out to Brooklyn. We're going to need a U-Haul on Saturday. We bought a perfect little side table at a flea market last Sunday ($200, and the first piece of non-particleboard furniture I own). Plus, the apartment is in such a state that we're eating out and ordering basically all the time right now. I'm making an IKEA shopping list that's rapidly heading towards $300, and we're going to need a new dining room set (the one we've been using was so broken and haphazard that it served more as a surface for putting stuff than an actual dining table, and we're not planning on taking it with us), and gah.
But the new apartment is going to be great. Seriously. And I'm willing to spend a few hundred bucks to get into it and get it set up--I'm sort of thinking of it as spending my stimulus check, even though I haven't gotten my stimulus check yet (note to self: and never will, if you don't fill out a mail forwarding form). There's definitely a cost to living a little bit more like a grownup, and I think I'm willing to spring for that cost at the moment.
(I'm also going to need to shell out to fix my computer: both the battery and the power cord are well and truly dead.)
Monday, May 19, 2008
Goodness.
It's been quite awhile--I do apologize. The apartment hunting really ate my life for a week and a half or so there, and I've been recovering since we signed a lease last Tuesday. That's right! Signed a lease!
K and I will be Brooklyn residents at the end of the month, and it feels a little bit like the end of an era. I'm a born-and-raised Manhattanite, so it'll be a bit of an adjustment.
My personal rent bill is going from $625 to $750, which is a big bump. The raise (about $90/month in real terms) will make much of the difference, but I'm also going to have to dial down my 401(k) contributions. While doing so is a bit disappointing, I've been contributing a pretty sizable amount up until now (about $115/paycheck), and reducing that to about $60/paycheck will allow me to pay my rent while still earning the full employer match in my 401(k) this year. I'm just going to get from here to December on that--my budget will need to be totally retooled then anyway, since I'll (hopefully) have met my Freedom Fund goal, and my travel fund will get much more urgent, and everything will be in flux some more.
We've paid the security deposit and the first month's rent, but have yet to figure out the situation with the broker fee--we're still hoping to negotiate the broker down from her draconian 12% figure, and it's all a little bit chaotic right now. Having pulled $1250 from savings is scary, even though I'm pretty confident that it'll be paid back when we get our security deposit back from our current place.
There's a limbo period in which many balls must be kept in the air. I'm just hoping not to drop any.
Monday, May 05, 2008
I Will Not Get What I Do Not Ask For
Wow--I totally got what I wanted. I got more than what I wanted. My request for an accelerated salary review at the beginning of June turned into a $2,000 raise, no questions asked, effective immediately. I win at negotiating!
See, okay, I'm a nonconfrontational person by nature. I'm also, despite current appearances to the contrary, really not that great at advocating for myself. But I'm definitely better than I used to be, and improving all the time, because over and over and over I learn that I will not get what I do not ask for. And you won't either.
I think a lot of people, especially young women, are scared to be seen trying. We think that if our merits are apparent, the people in charge of evaluating us will see and will reward us, and if they do not see and reward us, we are not displaying merit, and we will look like stupid, stupid fools if we start talking about our merits to people who clearly have already decided that we have none (or at the very least, not enough). So we sit still and we keep quiet and we cross our fingers. As a strategy for getting oneself where one wants to go, this sucks. I've just had that demonstrated for me very powerfully. So I'm going to keep trying. Visibly and otherwise. I succeeded this time, but I definitely have a ton of failure in my future--I think I'll come out ahead for it.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
April Goals Update
My net worth is $23,613, which represents an increase of $1,052 or 4.66%. I'm expecting a strong month in May, as it's a three-paycheck month, so hopefully by the end of next month I should be closing in on the $25,000 mark.
I'm revising my net worth goal to $30,000 for this year, which would be an increase of $10,000. I'd factored the assumption of a strong market performance into the previous goal, which turns out to not be a great idea. I hope to beat this goal, but I think my initial goal of $35,000 was overly optimistic.
I made some progress in my 401(k) this month, too:
Fidelity Freedom 2050 Fund: 383.59 shares (last month: 351.2 shares)
Fidelity Total Stock Market Index Fund: 35.3 shares (last month: 32.2 shares)
That said, how are my other goals going?
Earn the full match in my 401(k)
I'm nearly at 50%. At this rate, I'll have earned the full match by the middle of September.
Save $4,000 in the Freedom Fund, for an end balance of $10,000.
My Freedom Fund currently stands at $7,275. It should be quite close to $8,000 by the end of this month.
Earn $1,500 of non-salary income, earmarked for graduate school application expenses.
I'm not doing a great accounting job on this goal...eek. Let's see: I made $35 from a paid link, and $60 from Prosper referrals...decent, but not great. I'm itching to take Google Ads down and replace them with BlogHer ads (technically, you can do both, but I don't want the page overwhelmed by ads), but I haven't yet hit Google's threshold for a payout. It's agonizingly slow.
Buy a friend a drink at least once a month.
I don't think I made this one this month, actually--I offered a couple of times for sure, but I don't think it worked out, actually. I did throw a seder for a bunch of friends at my place, though, so maybe that counts.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Job Decision
I'm staying put.
I talked to one of my bosses today: told her I'd had an offer and that I wanted to stay. Told her why: I'm excited about a couple of upcoming projects, I can be open about the fact that I'm considering going to grad school (if I stay here through then, I'll have been here nearly three years, which is an extraordinary tenure at this kind of job, and won't feel at all guilty telling my bosses in advance that I'm looking to move on and getting them to write me recommendations), and I appreciate the opportunity to work on my own. All of this is true. I also told her that they'd offered me $4,000 more, which is sort of true (the base salary was $2,000 higher than I make now, plus a bonus of about $2,000--but as I've mentioned, the benefits were worse than the ones I get now by a margin that wipes that difference out). I told her that I'm not making demands for a raise, but that I'd like a salary review in June, instead of waiting until the customary one in December. She said she thinks that's fair, but that it's ultimately my other boss's call, since he runs the department. He's in London, but she and I will meet to go over my projects on Friday so that she can be prepared to meet with him to advocate for me. If I get this raise in June, I come out ahead of where I'd be, financially, at either job, and I'm in the right place to boot.
So, that's done. Ultimately, I decided based on the way each of the two jobs fit into my life and my plans, not based on money or even the fact that I find my boss (not the one I talked to, the other one) abrasive. My current plan has me staying here about another twelve to thirteen months, then quitting for a glorious summer of travel and vacation before starting graduate school.
Next up: finding a damn apartment. I've already done some things right and some things wrong, and in my next post I'll tell you what they were.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Job Stuff Some More
I was supposed to hear back from the woman I've been negotiating with over at Prospective New Company today. I didn't. I think this means that the news that's coming is bad: that they're not going to be able to give me what I asked for.
That's okay.
I mean, not "okay" as in, "oh, okay, I'll take the job anyway." It's okay because my options are wide open. While considering this job offer, I realized that it's not an either/or situation: it's not a simple choice between a) stay in my current job for another year until I quit to go to graduate school and b) take that job. I can do any number of things. I could put off grad school some more if I found my dream job, or I could quit altogether and try to make it through to grad school doing freelance writing (hey, that's why they call it a Freedom Fund, my friends). In the meantime, I've contacted a well-placed friend of my parents' who's agreed to chat with me about working with books and ideas in a couple of weeks. I've got a lot going on in my life right now: planning parties and starting blogs and thinking about my future, in addition to some personal stuff I'm still having to put time and effort into, and then the big push for graduate school coming up if I don't find my dream job in the next couple of months...
The thing is to remember to treat it as a joy to have so many options. It is a joy, and a privilege, and I tend to choke up and flip out about having to make decisions about my life--I'm working on not doing that so much. Breathe, I am trying to remind myself. Breathe.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Great Blog Find: The Economical Academic
I just stumbled on The Economical Academic, which is a perfect cross-section of frugality and academia, directed at grad students, and simply had to bring it to your attention posthaste. Hit it up for tips on surviving through to the PhD.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
My New Baby
I've alluded to this a couple of times on this blog, but it's mostly up and running now, and you can go check it out:
Please welcome The Interpreted World!
I do, frankly, think of this both an investment and a career move, and I'm interested both in the possibility that it can (eventually) earn me income on a month-to-month basis and can (possibly) get me a job doing what I love, which is analyzing, criticizing, processing, interpreting. But in the short term, it's a way to hone my writing skills and a source of personal satisfaction, and though I haven't hit my stride yet, I'm looking forward to carrying the project forward. I invite you to check it out, comment, subscribe, all that good stuff.
My brilliant and generous boyfriend did all the design. He's not credited yet, because the one thing he can't be pinned down to do is take credit for his work, but he did it, and he deserves recognition for it. But I'd love your feedback on the site: anything that looks weird, works weird, reads weird—let me know.
Enjoy!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Job Decision Update
Thanks for all of the comments on the previous post--they were really helpful. I just wanted to drop a quick update on what's gone down since: I called Prospective New Company's HR department about the benefits package. It sucked. No 401(k) match, high health care premium...the two combined mean that I'd need $4,000 more at New Company than at Current company to break even, and they'd only offered me $2,000 more. No way I'm taking a pay cut to take a more responsible position.
So I wrote the woman I've been talking to about this job all along and told her that. More tactfully, obviously. I just said, look, I called the HR department, they told me the deal, the deal is unsatisfactory. I'm still psyched about the offer, but it has to be higher; please let me know if you can swing that. I gave her a number: $40,000.
So the ball's in her court, and I'm waiting to see how she responds. She sent me a quick note this morning acknowledging my email and promising a response soon (she's at a conference). I feel good about what I did: the email was tactful but firm, and I think I did pretty well at conveying my enthusiasm for the job without caving on the stuff I need (/want).
This means I'm putting off discussing any kind of job change with my current company (I was thinking about going ahead, but my dad pointed out that I won't be coming into the situation from a position of strength). And it means I'm appreciating my excellent benefits at my current company a little more than I did yesterday morning. Counting my blessings!
