Jana Says

Living life from cover to cover

Revising home economics

by Jana 13 Comments

As I was sewing a button onto my husband’s shorts the other day, he made a comment that he’s glad I took home ec in middle school. It wasn’t like a had a choice! Where I went to school, we were required to have 1 marking period each year, for all three years, of home economics. While that’s all fine and good, I can’t say that many of my home ec skills were learned during that time.

Sure, I learned how to sew a button and make pillows but there’s really not much else I learned. Oh, wait! I did read a recipe. Once. Mainly it was just a bunch of 11-13 year old girls sitting in a stuffy, windowless room, pretending to do actual work and talking about which boys were cute. It was great fun at the time but now, as an adult reflecting back, I realize what a gigantic waste of time that class really was. And it had so much potential!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not faulting the teachers. They did a great job. We just weren’t ready to learn what they were teaching and those skills are not practical to teach 11-13 year old girls. But I do feel that home ec is an important class (which, by the way, I feel that boys should be required to take as well. Learning how to take care of oneself and one’s home is not solely a female job). People need to learn these important skills. Here are some of the changes I suggest:

  1. Move it high school, particularly in the 11th or 12th grade as students are getting prepared for college. The information will be fresher and more relevant.
  2. Teach skills for grocery savings. Kids have no idea how much food costs and if they’re getting ready to live on their own, it’s a good idea to give them some background information. Incorporate menu planning, looking for sales and using coupons. And while we’re on the subject, give kids ideas on how to prepare meals beyond macaroni and cheese from a box. Practical meals, not elaborate dishes.
  3. Teach skills for how to effectively and inexpensively clean a house/apartment. Go over the importance of home hygiene, including methods for organization and establishing some sort of cleaning routine that also discusses doing laundry. My husband lived in his fraternity house for 3 years. I speak from personal experience when I say that boys must learn how to clean! My immune system is greatly improved from the time I spent in that house. (This is not to say that girls are immaculate. But I don’t know anyone who got ringworm from living in a sorority house.)
  4. Teach basic personal finance skills. This includes how to balance a checkbook or use online banking effectively, the pros and cons of credit cards, having a budget, how to create a budget, how to look for a job, the soft skills required to obtain and keep a job, and the importance of paying bills on time. You cannot function as an adult if you do not have this information. I will leave the discussion about student loans, car loans, mortgages, and any other sort of major personal finance decision to the discretion of the teacher. This information may be better suited for another type of class.

Some people may think that this is a bit too sophisticated for home economics. I respectfully disagree. These are all elements that are crucial to running, maintaining and keeping a home. Many kids do not learn these skills from their parents or guardians. And I will concede that on some level, it is the parents’ responsibility to teach these skills to their children. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, many parents don’t do it. My parents didn’t. I didn’t know how to cook, balance a checkbook, clean my room properly, pay a bill or even make my own doctor appointments until I went to college. I only learned how to do my laundry at 16 because I was on a cross-country trip where we stopped at laundromats to wash our clothes. There was no real reason my parents didn’t teach me these skills; they just didn’t think it was important. Whether they thought they would always do it for me or I was too stupid to learn, I’ll never know. But it was only through trial and error, and reaching back into the depths of my brain to recall what I learned in middle school, was I able to survive.

Kids who are in the foster care system are offered the opportunity to work with programs and mentors on Independent Living Skills as they prepare to age out of the system and I think it’s wonderful that they’re given that opportunity. They sure as hell deserve it. But I think we need to start doing a better job of preparing all students to be responsible and practical adults. Schools are a great place to start.

Fear factor: Self-employment

by Jana 15 Comments

I recently guest posted over at Broke Professionals as to why I work for the government. In all of that description, I left out one key factor–I’m terrified of being self-employed.

Please don’t get me wrong. I long for the day where I can work from home or a park or a beach without reporting at a certain time, doing what someone else wants me to do and wearing something that’s not my pajamas or yoga pants. Lack of self-confidence not withstanding, here are a few reasons why I am too scared to take the plunge into self-employment:

Taxes. Except for knowing that I have to pay them and what the little abbreviations on my paystub stand for, I don’t understand taxes. They are far, far beyond my scope of understanding. If I work for myself, I will have to figure out taxes and make sure that I pay them on time and accurately. I fear that this won’t happen and I’ll have to deal with an audit. That scares me.

Insurance. Right now, since my husband and I both work for the State, our medical insurance is free (some sort of double state share formula that is way too complicated for me to understand) and we pay very reasonable amounts for vision and dental insurance. The thought of having to find my own policy and pay the borderline obscene amounts make me want to throw up a little.

Retirement. Although I have a Roth IRA, I also have a guaranteed pension where the money comes right out of my paycheck. I also have extra money deducted and put in some sort of Fidelity account. While self-employment means that I’ll have to significantly ratchet up the Roth and Fidelity savings, and I’m OK with that, losing the pension makes me really, really nervous. Confession time: because of the pension, I’ve been very lazy with the rest of my retirement savings and I’m afraid of how much catching up I have to do.

Finding work/clients. This is where the self-confidence bit comes into play. I am the world’s worst at convincing someone that he should pick my work over someone else’s (the fact that I have the job that I have is, in my opinion, a huge fluke and/or divine intervention) because, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I’m really all that better than anyone else. I have a terrible time selling myself (this also eliminates my potential career as a prostitute. This is probably a good thing) and, as a self-employed person, I would have to put myself out there. It’s not the rejection I’m scared of; I can handle rejection. I’m just not comfortable with saying “Hey, I’m awesome. I’m better than a sparkly unicorn who breathes diamonds and you should hire me instead of that loser”.

Inconsistent income. As the parent of a small child, I love the fact that I can rely on my paycheck to be consistent every single time I get paid. I have a nice, comfortable budget that provides for all of our needs and the occasional want. I know that if my daughter needs something, I don’t have to worry about the money that may or may not be in my paycheck; I’ll know exactly how much will be there. Being self-employed, there will be ebbs and flows in my income and that puts me on edge. I know there are tools to help budget and plan on an irregular income but there’s something about the consistency of my current paycheck that’s soothing. I thrive on stability.

To me, jumping into self-employment is like jumping off the high dive into a really amazing pool complete with swim-up bar and big screen TVs playing Jason Segel movies all day long. Right now, I’m on the ladder of security and stability, thinking about stepping onto the diving board to jump into the pool. Each rung I climb is a step closer to my dream. If only I could get over my fear of free falling.

Are you self-employed? How did you get over your fears and decide to take the plunge?

Money docs

by Jana 3 Comments

Although I am not a huge fan of reality shows, there are some that I watch. For instance, I love Bridezillas and Jerseylicious (don’t judge me). I also love, for some inexplicable reason, Downsized. If you haven’t seen it, or even heard of it, Downsized is a reality show about a blended family in Arizona with 7 children–6 of whom are teenagers (and 3 are triplets!)–who essentially lost everything when the economy tanked a few years ago. They were making a ton of money as a result of his construction business and when that dried up, so did their finances. The show follows them attempting to get back on track.

I can’t really figure out how I feel about the family. Some moments I love them and think “Hey, they finally get it!” and other moments I want to reach through the TV and punch every single one of them. I guess that shows what good editors they have! But it does offer a quasi-real picture of what many American families have been experiencing over the last few years and occasionally, there’s a little nugget of good information–like a financial Easter egg.

But this show got me thinking about how many other TV shows and movies are out there that deal with the subject matter of finance. I’m not talking one or two scenes in a grander story; I’m talking the central focus is money. Here are some of the ones that I’ve watched over the years:

Capitalism: A Love Story–this is Michael Moore’s scathing look at the way corporate America dominates every facet of every day lives. Told with true Michael Moore angst, it’s an interesting look at our economic system and its impact here and across the world. I’ve watched this movie a few times and while it makes some good points, it gets a bit preachy for me. I’d rather watch some of his other documentaries like Bowling for Columbine.

What Would Jesus Buy–this documentary follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country trip to stop the consumerism of Christmas and prevent, what he call the Shopocalypse. I remember watching this with a bit of skepticism but it was really quite interesting. His passion is both inspiring and overwhelming.

30 Days: Minimum Wage–this was the first episode of Morgan Spurlock’s show 30 Days and it followed him and his fiancee as they tried to survive in Cleveland living on solely minimum wage. They moved there for 1 month with virtually nothing and tried to see how they would fare. Every time I watch this episode I change my opinion about their experience. They definitely gave it a valiant effort but it was only for 30 days. I think anyone can do anything for 30 days.

MTV’s True Life episodes–say what you want about MTV and its lack of actual music and its crappy shows. True Life is a pretty good one. It’s obviously skewed for its target audience but the show has focused on many financial issues such as being in debt, being homeless, living in poverty, having broke parents and my personal favorite episode “I’m Supporting My Family”. The show provides a look at how financial issues affect the younger population, which gives it an different perspective.

I also enjoy watching what Barbara Ehrenreich calls “recession porn”. It refers to all of the print and TV journalism stories about families affected by the recession. Though I don’t get any sort of satisfaction out of watching these shows about the downfall of others, they do make me think about how blessed and fortunate I’ve been. Plus, they’re just interesting.

I’ve been watching and reading about money long before I started writing about it. I guess it’s just something I’m drawn to. And I’m always on the lookout for something new. With that, I ask you:

Do you watch documentaries or TV shows about money and financial issues? What are some of you favorites?

It takes one

by Jana 7 Comments

Rob Base was wrong. It does not take two to make a thing go right. It only takes one.

What the heck am I talking about? In order to clear that up, I’ll have to start with a personal philosophy that I have:

    

  “Changing the entirely too daunting. So I aim to impact one person. Because if I’ve impacted one person, I’ve done my job.”

To illustrate my philosophy, let’s talk about my cat. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been concerned for homeless animals. It makes me sad that they have no shelter, no regular food source, no love and a lot of times, no name. So when my homeowner’s associate send around a newsletter urging people to use their trash can lids because “We’ve noticed some stray cats in the neighborhood and we don’t want them”, my internal middle finger was lifted and I decided to do something about it. Like feeding the feral cat that’s been living in the neighborhood for the last 2 years.
Not only did I start feeding this cat daily, I built her a shelter and arranged to have her neutered; no more feral cats were going to be conceived on my watch! As time’s gone by, this cat–Boots–has become our pet. The neighborhood knows she belongs to us.  Boots responds to her name. She doesn’t really leave the vicinity of our house because she knows that its her home, too. My daughter adores her and cries every night because Boots isn’t allowed to sleep in our house. And although she still won’t let us pet her (she’s been feral for about 3 years), she has to make sure that we are within her sight whenever we are outside. She is now our cat. She has been given a foundation. Even though I can’t help all of them, I have made a difference for this one cat.
That’s what I’m trying to do with this blog. My financial stories and advice may not be useful for everyone (though I do hope that everyone finds them entertaining) but if I can impact one person, then I’ve made an impact. If one person finds a foundation from my story, then I’ve reached my goal. Am I a financial expert? Hell, no! But I hope I’ve made enough mistakes and course corrected enough that someone else can relate to my story and course correct herself (or himself). Because if one can inspire one who can inspire another one, well, there’s no stopping us.
Oh, and the cat? Here she is:

A despicable act

by Jana 9 Comments

I give money to charity. I don’t mind doing it, I like doing it and I’ll keep doing it. While I don’t give gigantic amounts, I give what I can. I don’t expect anything in return for giving money to charity (except maybe a little good karma every now and again). In fact, this concept is a basic tenet of Judaism. It’s called tzedakah and it is one of the 613 mitzvahs.

I try to be a good person, and giving tzedakah is one of the ways I do that. And my job makes it extremely simple to give. For instance, I can have money taken directly out of my paycheck (it comes out of my net pay, not my gross) and given to any charity I choose (from a given list). I can buy Girl Scout cookies or other items from co-workers. I can even participate in fundraisers that directly benefit our employee charitable campaign, which is something I would do almost daily.

In my building, there was an ongoing snack sale where we could buy snacks and sodas for cheap ($.25, $.50). There was a little jar that we would put our money in and, at the end of the day, someone from the committee would collect money. It was a great system, and no one monitored the jar because–let’s face it–we’re adults and can be trusted. Apparently, not so much.

Last Friday, we received an email that the snack and soda sale would be discontinued indefinitely because someone has been stealing the money out of the jar. This infuriated me! First of all, in what direction does your moral compass point that you need to steal money from charity? Second, it’s not as if this was massive amounts of money; we’re talking maybe $20 at the end of the day. Third, and this is the selfish part of me, I’m pissed that I can’t get my $.50 sodas anymore! I did not mind paying $.50 for a soda because the money went to charity. I will not spend $1.50 for a soda from the vending machine for the money to go straight to the vendor.

Stealing from charity is deplorable. It is theft and the perpetrator should be prosecuted. Or at least be forced to pay the money back anonymously. I’m hoping that the shame he or she feels for stealing the money is enough punishment that public humiliation is not necessary. Though, right now, I’d love to put the thief in a stockade and throw tomatoes at him (or her).

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