Jana Says

Living life from cover to cover

Sleepaway camp: Not quite a need. But worth the money.

by Jana 23 Comments

Recently, my friend Nick went on a tirade rant about how he doesn’t understand why so many people in his area consider sleepaway camp a necessity. As a former camper, I was a little upset at his choice of words. It’s hard to explain to someone who’s never been to sleepaway camp why it’s so important, or why so many people consider it a necessity, but I’m going to give it a try.

For those of you not familiar with sleepaway camp, let me explain. Imagine, deep in the woods or mountains (or sometimes both), a small village filled with cabins, soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts, a lake, maybe a pool, a whole lot of dirt, trees and bugs. Inhabiting that village are hundreds of screaming children, living for 4 to 8 weeks in those cabins, supervised by just as unruly college students. Three times a day, they’re hoarded into a giant holding tank where they’re fed such luxury foods as pizza bagels, somewhat baked chicken (and not always minus the feathers), and sugar flavored water. Sometimes, during those feeding times, a random song or dance will break out (if you’re lucky, those screaming chants will include immense peer pressure to get one camper to kiss another, quick and on the cheek. Ask me how I know this). Sounds horrible, right?

I assure you, it’s not.

There is nothing better than spending 8 weeks living with your friends, away from your parents, learning to do fun things like canoe or sail or make immense amounts of lanyard bracelets. It’s a time where kids who are too shy to try out for the school play can become theater stars or the nonathletic to participate on a sports team. It’s a place where girls who never get asked on dates always have a boyfriend (ask me how I know this).  It’s an atmosphere that allows you to be who you really are and have people accept you for it. It’s a place, truly, where self-esteem is built and it provides an escape from a life that many kids desperately need an escape from.  To me, you can’t put a price tag on that.

But in addition to the self-esteem building, there are plenty of other skills that kids learn at sleepaway camp (none of them involving late night raids, practical jokes or stealthily avoiding mandatory activities. Ask me how I know this). For instance, camp is where I learned the true importance of living in a clean house. Nothing says “clean this shit up” like the possibility of a chipmunk, raccoon, squirrel or various 6-8 legged creatures showing up to invade your stuff. I learned how to be organized because when you have 4 shelves for your clothes, ½ a shelf for your toiletries (for a 15 year old girl, ½  a shelf is not at all adequate) and you’re too afraid to store stuff under your bunk bed, you maximize and organize what you do have. I learned that there are consequences for showing up late and sometimes, rewards for showing up early. I also learned that hot water is in limited supply and that showing up late to the shower means an impossibly cold, unpleasant shower (due to this, I can take a complete shower, including shaving my legs, in under 5 minutes. TMI? Possibly. Completely true? Absolutely).

That’s not all. When you spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with the same people, you learn how to independently and quickly solve problems as well as let grudges go. In the same vein, you learn that you’re not going to get along with everyone, and that’s fine, but sometimes you’re still going to have to spend time together and you better not complain about it. You also learn that there is a whole world out there besides the small town you come from. Many summer camps employ counselors from other countries and let me tell you, that was pretty awesome. To this day, my favorite accent is that of a New Zealander and it’s all thanks to my counselor Natalie.

I guess, to answer Nick’s concern, sleepaway camp isn’t necessarily a need. Kids do survive just fine without it. But it’s not as big of a waste as it seems to be. Sure you may spend your days doing arts and crafts or playing soccer and your nights participating in talent shows and other ridiculous activities, but when all is said and done, sleepaway camp provides a lot of value to the campers. Many of the skills I have as an adult are either directly or indirectly related to what I learned at camp.

Plus, it’s just damn fun. I enjoyed the hell out of the summers I spent at my sleepaway camp. They are some of the fondest memories I have from my childhood, and if my daughter ever wants to go, I have no problem coming up with the money to send her. It may not be a life or death need but what she’ll gain from going will be worth every penny spent.

Practical tips for saving money? Not always.

by Jana 26 Comments

Here in the personal finance world, many of us dispense information about saving money, living frugally, cutting back on expenses…anything to help you manage your money in the best way possible. I know I do it, and some of my favorite blogs do it. It’s information that most people need but unfortunately, a lot of the tips given are ludicrous.  They may amount to small savings, which is good and I’m sure that lots of people need those small savings (after all, little things do add up), but when you think about the tips from a practical standpoint, they’re not always the best route.

A few of the ones that I can’t stand:

  • Unplug appliances and electronics when not in use. Fine, vampire electricity is a real thing. But going around my house every single time I want to leave or every single time I come home is a nuisance. Do you know how difficult it is to get to some of the power cords? Also, I hate resetting clocks. Almost every appliance in my house is attached to a clock. Instead of unplugging everything. I’d rather just turn things off. For instance, we sleep with a fan even in the dead of winter. When we’re not asleep or in the room, we turn the fan off. Simple. Fan’s not running, we’re not paying for it. But as for the power strip that holds the cord for our TV, the Wii and the Blu-Ray player, I’m not turning it off every time I leave the house. It’s impossible to remember so I’m not even going to try. I’ll pay the extra $.74/month (or whatever it costs). [Read more…]

Choosing a school. It’s not just for college anymore.

by Jana 25 Comments

This is exactly what they used to pick the names. How's that for modern technology?

A few weeks ago, my family piled into our car at roughly 9:00 AM to sit in a smelly elementary school gymnasium to find out if my daughter was selected, via lottery, to attend a charter school in our area. We knew that our odds were iffy because a) it’s the only charter school in our area; b) it’s one of the best schools in the state; and c) it’s free. Everyone who can enter his or her child in the lottery does, making our chances ever slimmer. But little did we know that of the 132 spots available, only 76 spots would be left up for grabs. When you add that into the fact that about 300 people entered their kids in the lottery (just for kindergarten), our chances looked pretty grim.

Needless to say, my daughter didn’t get in. She’s 9th on the waiting list. Which, compared to some people who are 136 or higher, is pretty good. If 10 families screw up, we’re in! How exciting! Because I cannot rely on the mistakes of others, I have to pursue other avenues. For instance, school choice. We have school choice in our state but the schools I wanted to choice my daughter into are full and not accepting choice students. So onto the next few options: move, send her to our local public school, which sits squarely in the worst district in the state, or fork over the money for private school. Moving is our first choice (because that means we can actually send her to public school) but again, we have to rely on others. So, in the event that we can’t sell our house before school starts, we have to go with the private school option. And that doesn’t make me happy.

Why? Because the cost of private school is ridiculous. Or at least the one we’re trying for (the others have a price tag higher than in-state tuition at our local university. No, thank you). After paying $100 just to have her application reviewed, I had the privilege of taking her to an hour long evaluation to find out if she’s even acceptable for the school. If she is, then I get to pay a $400 deposit followed by over $7000 in tuition for the school year. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. If we want her to take the bus, we have to pay and the fee for that is determined by how far away we live from the school. And, if I can’t adjust my hours at work, we’re going to have to pay for aftercare (we get to skate with beforecare because my husband will be able to drive her. Hooray for small victories!).

That doesn’t include uniforms, supplies, books and whatever else they feel I need to pay for. And I’ll pay for everything they tell me to. I don’t care what it costs. My daughter’s education is worth it to me. It just makes me sad that the public schools where I live are so bad that sending her to them isn’t even an option. I’m not exaggerating either. I know lots of people who are in the same position or have moved simply because of the schools. It’s appalling and hurts me that our public schools can’t provide a good education for my child.

I am a huge proponent of public schools. I am a product of them. From elementary school through graduate school, I went to a public institution. And I’m really proud of the education I received. The fact that, without moving to a different district and out of our house (which we want to anyway but that’s another post), my daughter can’t have that bothers me tremendously. But when I live in a district that would rather turn down money for improvements than comply with the rules to receive that money, it’s time for other plans.

Situations like this make me glad that our consumer debt is gone. If we were still paying all that money, there’s no way we could afford this alternative situation. While this absolutely throws a monkey wrench in our savings plan, it’s a necessity for us. And I’ll deal with it. However, I’m hoping that it’s only temporary and we’ll only have to do it for one year (well, ideally, we’ll sell the house before school starts). But if something happens and it turns into a 12 year event, I’ll be okay. She just better get a hell of a good college scholarship.

 

The debt is gone. Now what?

by Jana 20 Comments

The other day I wrote a post about grieving my debt. As usual, I got some great feedback from readers but one comments in particular stuck out for me:

Makenzie from The Random Path said “I can see how it would be strange to not have any debt and think “Now what”?”

It’s a great question, and one that I’ve been asking myself every single day. Now that I’m not funneling money towards credit card payments, what do I do next? Being in debt has inhibited a ton of goals and I have a lot of catching up to do. But where do I start?

Here are a few options:

  1. Retirement. My IRA has an embarrassingly low balance. So low, in fact, I’m not even going to tell you what it is. I have a small balance in my Fidelity account but it’s nothing to brag about. And I do have a pension through my government job but, by the time I retire, who knows what that’s going to look like. I really need to up my retirement savings and putting extra money towards this is at the top of the list. It’s just a matter of which pot of money we’re going to use to do it.
  2. College. My husband has massive student loan debt (granted, it’s not as massive as some people’s, but it’s large enough) and, after much discussion, we’ve decided that we don’t want our daughter starting out her adult life the way he started out his. In order to do that, we have to start putting a lot more money into her 529 than we currently do. The plan is to move the daycare payments (which end in June) to her college savings but there’s a situation that might be preventing that (stay tuned because next week, I’ll be venting discussing that). If the situation resolves itself, we’ll be sending a minimum of $350 to her 529 every month.
  3. New car. Eventually our cars will stop running and we will need to replace them. We don’t live in an area with spectacular public transportation and we’re planning on moving to an area that has absolutely none. So, we’re going to need our cars. Yes, cars, because my husband’s job will be over an hour away from our new house and I’m going to need to get around; sharing one car is out of the question. We’re lucky in that we have later model cars that are really reliable but you can only push a car so far. I despise having car payments so saving for new cars is critical.
  4. Down payment. We currently own our house (well, technically the bank owns it since we pay a mortgage but you know what I mean) and are planning on selling it very, very soon. However, because all of the other homes for sale in our neighborhood are actually bank-owned, our comps are terrible (yes, we were relying on money from the sale of our house to help increase our down payment). This means we won’t have enough money, even with what we have in savings, for a 20% down payment. So we’re going to have to rent for a year or two to build up that 20% savings. I really, really hate renting and want my own house again.
  5. Emergency Fund. We have the requisite, Dave Ramsey sanctions $1000 baby emergency fund (plus an extra few hundred). That’s it. It’s enough to cover most repairs (HVAC system, tires, etc) but it certainly isn’t enough to cover 3-6 months of expenses. Now that my husband has moved to a private sector job, it’s not as secure as his government job was and we need to be prepared in case something happens. He does have a very secure part-time job that would definitely help in the event of a layoff but it certainly wouldn’t be enough. We really need to build this part of our saving up.

It’s hard to prioritize which one is the most important. We have a finite amount of money coming in and we need to build up all of these savings buckets. On any given day, I’ll tell you that a different one should be the most important; it’s all very confusing to me and I don’t know where we should send our money (for the record, the husband is just as confused as I am).

Knowing that we need to do all of this is making me extremely anxious. I wish there was some sort of baby steps plan for savings (I realize Dave Ramsey touches on this but it’s really not specific enough). Maybe I should develop that.

What do you suggest I do?

Grieving your debt? It really happens.

by Jana 17 Comments

If you’ve ever experienced paying off debt, you know how excruciating it is. It consumes most of your thoughts, uses all your money, tests your patience and forces you to make really tough choices. Everything you are, everything you believe, every ounce of discipline you have is put on trial when you’re dealing with your debt.

But something else happens during that time. Your debt?  It becomes part of your family. Sure, it’s the part of your family that gets drunk at Thanksgiving, tells horrible “pull my finger” jokes, forgets everyone’s birthdays and is generally unpleasant but it’s still part of the family. It’s a family member that’s been present in your life for a long time and when it’s gone, you’re left grieving.

Yes, it’s exciting to kick the son of bitch to the curb. You may have a funeral for your debt or write a touching tribute or even call Dave Ramsey and scream “We’re debt freeeeeeeeeee” but when that’s all done, and you sit down to look at your monthly budget, you notice something is missing.  There’s a void. And you’re not sure what to do because you don’t realize what a huge presence your debt repayment had in your life until it’s gone.

That’s what happened to me. When we made the final payment on our credit card debt, I wasn’t sure what to do. We had spent almost 5 years paying it off. Almost every spare penny was sent to that debt. Home repairs, vacations, new clothes—everything was put on hold so our extra money could be applied to our debt. Then, one day—just like that—it was gone. I had never had to plan a budget that didn’t involve debt repayment and honestly, it was uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do with that extra money. That uncertainty almost made me wish for the debt payment again.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what I was experiencing was something akin to the 5 stages of grief. My thinking about eliminating my debt went like this:

Denial—The first thing I thought when I looked at my budget with no debt repayment factored in was “No way. There is no way I have no more credit card debt. That cannot possibly be my budget”.  It was hard to accept that all of our work had finally, and literally, paid off.

Anger—Once I realized my credit card debt was gone, I was pissed. Not so much because I didn’t have any left but because I couldn’t help but think that “I just spent 5 freaking years paying off debt! What a waste of time and money that was. If had that money back, I could (fill in pretty much anything)”

Bargaining—I don’t think I necessarily bargained to get my debt payment back. I can’t remember thinking “I’d do anything to bring back a few hundred dollars of debt. Just a few hundred dollars. That’s all I’m asking for”. Nope, I’m pretty confident I skipped this stage.

Depression—During this stage I did have a few moments where I thought to myself “What’s the point of getting excited about this being paid off. Something else is just going to happen and I’ll have all that debt again”. Then I smacked myself in the face and reminded myself that I am in control of what happens next.

Acceptance—It didn’t take a long time for me to accept that my credit card debt was gone. I came to terms with the fact that I had survived the 5 years of debt repayment and that, from now on, my finances were going to be greatly improved. And once I did allow myself to accept that fact, it was liberating.

Make no mistake. I don’t miss my debt at all. I’m over the moon glad it’s gone. But it was a huge shock to my system when I realized I no longer had to make a credit card payment. I had to come to terms with the fact that BrainGames was now over. Working through the 5 step process definitely helped.

And when that was done, I screamed with glee.

 

 

Connect with Me

Subscribe to Jana Says

Jana Says
© 2017 by Jana Says. All Rights Reserved.
Crafted with by sasspurrella designs.