Jana Says

I want, I want, I want!

April 30, 2012 by Jana 14 Comments

I desperately, more than anything, want a third dog. I know. It’s insane and foolish and a terrible idea. Yet I can’t let it go.

I peruse Petfinder almost daily. I had to actively stop myself from downloading the app onto my phone. The other night, our neighbor’s dog got loose and, seeing as how the family didn’t go looking for him, I contemplating telling them that if they weren’t going to care for him, I would gladly take him off their hands. But I couldn’t do that to their kids (or could I?)

My husband knows that I want to add another furry member to our family. He supports it…eventually. He entertains my delusions of puppy grandeur, and recently, even agreed to go meet a dog I found at a local shelter (the dog was adopted before we had a chance to get there. Good for the dog. Sad for us). But he knows, more than I do, that right now is not the greatest time to add a third dog to our family. Although timing-wise it’s perfect, financially it’s a horrible choice. Here’s why:

Adoption fees. I have no interest in purchasing a dog from a store or a breeder. I prefer to adopt one from a shelter or rescue organization. However, even that comes with upfront fees, and some of those fees are really expensive (particularly from some of our local rescues). While we might have a few hundred undesignated dollars, spending it on adopting a dog is probably not the most prudent use of our money. It’s better served going into savings or keeping around for another dog emergency.
Regular expenses. A third dog means more food, another crate, additional vet appointments, grooming, preventative meds and all the other monthly expenses that go along with responsibly adding a dog to our family. With money being a little tighter than usual due to my leave, we’re having to make cuts. Adding in more expenses every month means cutting back even farther and quite frankly, we’ve made pretty much every cut we can.
We’re trying to move. Putting our house up for sale is a pretty daunting task. We’re just about done with all the repairs and cosmetic fixes and we even have our realtor lined up. And we really need to move. Bringing a new dog into the house means more chances for accidents and destruction of property like what happened to poor Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. We cannot have that happen if we want to sell our house in the next year. Our wallets just can’t take having to spend that kind of money on home repairs.
Our house is just not big enough. My house is not small but it certainly isn’t big enough to accommodate 3 dogs and 3 humans. Just having the 2 dogs is a stretch sometimes. Also, if we added a third dog, we’d have to fence our backyard. Right now, with the 2, it’s not a big deal to put them on their leashes and take them for a walk. Adding a third to that mix would bring a chaos that I’m not sure I could handle on my own (or my husband could handle on his own).

We’ve thought about fostering like my friend Erin. Financially it’s a smarter choice but emotionally, I couldn’t do it. The thought of bringing a dog into my family, socializing him with my dogs (and cat), getting him (or her) used to us and then having to let him go is more than I can take. I have so much respect for people who are strong enough to do that. If I fostered a dog, he’d be mine. Case closed.

I know that one day (hopefully sooner than later), I’ll have another dog. Although it’s hard to remind myself that now is not the right time, I know that it’s not. I have to keep telling myself that this is the most practical, responsible, adult thing I can do for me and my family.

But you know what? Being a grown-up sucks sometimes.

Wedding Week: The Rings

April 27, 2012 by Jana 3 Comments

I picked out my own ring. Well, sort of. I picked out the setting. The husband picked out the stone. It was the only compromise we could come up with.

He wanted to pick out the ring in its entirety. I vehemently refused on the grounds that he has the worst tasted in jewelry of any human being ever. I’m not kidding. When we went ring shopping months before we got engaged, every ring he picked up was horrifying; I secretly think that designers were either high or asleep when they designed those settings. Anyway, I refused to wear them which he couldn’t understand. He would say “But you should love it because I gave it to you”. I would say “They’re horrible and I’m the one who has to look at it every day for the rest of my life”. His reply “I guess you have a point but still…I’m giving it to you”. Me? “But it’s ugly and I’ll never put it on”. Him? “Fine.”

Fortunately for him, the setting I fell in love with was relatively inexpensive, especially for a platinum setting. It was actually the first one that I saw and although we kept shopping, I kept comparing every other setting to that one. I loved that it was not showy and had sapphires in the setting as well as the fact that it had a matching wedding band. I also liked that there was not a single ring that looked like it in any store we browsed in. And we went to A LOT of stores (including several that pretended like we didn’t exist. That was fun).

I also had rules for the stone. I didn’t want one that was too large for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was cost. Since he was in grad school, I knew he didn’t have a lot of money to spend and I didn’t want to be the reason that he went further into debt. Had I known that he was going to take out a loan to pay for my ring, I probably would have relaxed that particular rule.

I think it goes without saying that I was pretty pissed when I found out he took out a loan to pay for my ring. He tried to hide it from me for quite a while but there was just something that made me ask. Probably one of those discussions where we talked about money because I wanted him to understand that if we were going to be married we couldn’t have financial secrets and he wanted to run out of the room (my husband and I used to fight about money all the time. The fact that now we don’t is nothing short of a miracle). I think I was pissed mainly for two reasons: one, he took on more debt and two, he tried to hide it from me. I understand that he didn’t want me to know how he paid for my ring but really? A loan? That I was going to have to help pay back because he was making almost no money and we were living on my salary as a social worker at a nonprofit?

Paying for your own ring really isn’t romantic at all.

Now, that’s not to say that I don’t love my rings and appreciate that he did the best he could. I just wished he had talked to me more openly about the finances behind it beforehand.

For those who are wondering, I paid for his wedding ring in cash. I had to save the money over 4 or 5 paychecks but I paid cash. No credit, no loans, no financing. Just cash. Granted, his ring was a lot less expensive but it still didn’t come easy to save that money. And I felt so proud of myself when I walked into the store, plunked down the money and walked out with a fully paid for ring.

Looking back, there is a lot I would have done differently when it came to my wedding and even parts of my engagement. But since I can’t change it, I can only ask that you learn from my mistakes (which, for reasons that I can’t discuss, I can’t talk about here. I really wish I could. Maybe I’ll guest post somewhere and discuss it then…). For those of you currently planning weddings, I suggest focusing on spending your money on the things that are really important and scrimping or going frugal on the things that aren’t. Don’t take out loans. Don’t use credit if you can avoid it. Don’t allow other people’s opinions to influence your decisions (this may be unavoidable, particularly if those people are paying for the wedding). And if you want to do something nontraditional, do it. It’s your wedding.

Wedding Week: The Honeymoon

April 26, 2012 by Jana 9 Comments

My husband and I aren’t exactly good with timing. It’s perhaps why our daughter was born in December, we bought our house on the upswing of the bubble and why we got married exactly one month before he finished grad school. Yup. That’s right. One month. In fact, he was working on his thesis the morning of our wedding. How’s that for romantic?

Anyway, because he was in grad school and I was a social worker at a nonprofit, we didn’t exactly have a ton of money for a honeymoon. It was important to us that we had one and, given the circumstances of not knowing where we were going to be living after he graduated, we decided (fine. I decided) that we were going on the honeymoon after the wedding rather than postponing it. The problem was affording it.

We explored dozens of options, domestic, international, and tropical island. Due to the time of year and the fact that we could only afford a 5 day trip, most places were eliminated almost immediately. Then we looked at flight prices and even more places were eliminated. We were left with a few options and ultimately, we decided on going to the Bahamas. But the cost was still a bit daunting. However, in one of our smarter moments, we agreed that we were not putting the honeymoon on a credit card. To do that we did the following (and please be advised, I don’t necessarily recommend any of this. It’s just what we did):

Convinced my father to donate some of his airline miles to us to add to mine in order for us to get a free ticket. We still had to pay for one ticket but this greatly helped decrease the ticket cost.
Went to an all-inclusive resort. It cost a little more upfront but reduced the overall cost. Especially when you factor in not having to pay extra for food, tips or anything else that chips away at your vacation budget.
Used some of the cash we got for engagement presents to pay for the trip. Yes, we should have saved it for…whatever, but this just seemed like the perfect thing to spend the money on. Besides, it was gift money. And we needed it (insert loose definition of “need”).
Had a set cash budget for extra activities, like a cab ride and money to gamble with at The Atlantis. We knew we weren’t going to be able to have a lot of cash for extras but we wanted to have some. So we put aside a specific amount for each day and if we didn’t use it, we rolled it into the next. It’s how we each had gambling money (which I turned into a profit and then, because of my husband’s bad advice, lost in its entirety. Never. Again.).

If I knew then what I know now, I would have done things completely differently. But I don’t think it turned out so badly. I mean, it was 5 days in The Bahamas! Who can complain about that? Plus, we incurred no debt for it. Which, for two people living on less than $40K, isn’t too shabby.

Did you employ any creative money saving techniques for your honeymoon?

Money Tune Tuesday: Wedding Week Playlist

April 24, 2012 by Jana 4 Comments

This is the second post in my Wedding Week series. Make sure you check out our engagement story, and come back on Wednesday and Friday for how we afforded rings, assorted gifts, and a honeymoon while living on my $27K salary and groom in grad school.

It should come as no surprise that one of the most important parts of my wedding–you know besides the vows, my dress and the rings–was the music. I genuinely didn’t care about the flowers or chair covers but I did have some strong opinions about the music. For instance, under no circumstances was there to be a conga line (I loathe conga lines. They are the worst. Thing. Ever. Except for horses. Horses doing a conga line would make it so I never left my house ever again). Also, no electric slide or any form of organized dances (I hate them and I can’t follow along. Yup. I’m that uncoordinated). Because I’m Jewish, I allowed the drunken circle of madness that is the Hora and the torture that is being lifted in chair, supported only by groomsmen who, of course, are of varying heights so one side of your body is substantially higher than the other (For extra points, at my wedding, the groomsmen knocked my mom’s head into the chandelier. Nothing says a good time like the mother of the bride almost getting a concussion).

I also had very specific artists and songs that had to be played. Fortunately, our DJ was a college friend of ours (this was complete coincidental, actually. Our location gave us a list of preferred vendors and when I called this one particular company, I received a call back from a gentleman who identified himself as my across the hall neighbor from sophomore year of college who we remained friends with for the rest of college and lost touch with over the years. This was pre-Facebook. Yes, I’m old) and was more than happy to comply with my pretty specific but only slightly neurotic list of “must play and never under any circumstances play” songs. Interesting side note to this story, because we knew the DJ, we got the ceremony music for free and about $100 knocked off the total price. Pretty sweet deal for us. It’s good to know people and have them randomly show up in your life and have them save you money.

Anyway, after some discussion, we picked the major songs: our first dance (Edwin McCain’s “I Could Not Ask for More), my dance with my dad (“You’ll Be In My Heart” by Phil Collins) and his dance with his mom (“I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack) but the one song that was a huge bone of contention–the song we were going to walk in to. He wanted Nine Inch Nails’s “Closer” but I had huge issues with using a song that says “I want to fuck you like an animal” with my grandparents in the room. He saw nothing wrong with it but he’s not smart sometimes. Guess who won that battle?

We discussed (and by discussed I mean argued). Eventually we settled (and by settled I mean I made the ultimate decision since he showed poor taste with the NIN debacle) on the beginning instrumental part of Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam”.

What? You thought I’d pick something normal?

Wedding Week: The Engagement

April 23, 2012 by Jana 12 Comments

This week, my husband and I are celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary. Given what’s happened over the last year, the fact that we even made it to this anniversary is a big deal. To celebrate, I’m turning this week into “Wedding Week” here on Daily Money Shot. It’s a 4 part series detailing certain aspects of our engagement and wedding planning. I should note that we did have an expensive wedding and we were fortunate to not have to pay for most of it. I will only be sharing the parts of the wedding planning that we did pay for.

My husband and I do not have a very interesting story of how we met. We met in the fall of 1996 when we were both sophomores in college. Where did we meet? In class. Great Crimes, to be exact. Our professor sat us alphabetically and he wound up next to my roommate. She’s the kind of person who talked to everyone and soon we learned that he lived in our apartment building. So, she invited him to be our new BFF (mainly because she had a crush on him. Yes, I know. I’m terrible) and 3 months later, we were dating. End of story.

If you’ve done even a quick bit of math, you’ll realize that we started dating in 1996 and didn’t get married until 2004. Believe me, that was a sore point for me, too. In fact, in late 2002, around our 6 year anniversary (and, I should note here that we were living together at this point), I started to kind of freak out that we were not even close to being engaged. Which led to a GIGANTIC fight where he promised that by the end of the year, we would be engaged. Case closed.

But not really.

You see, by the time New Year’s Eve 2002 had come and gone, we were still not engaged. I let it go that night but the next day? I. Was. Pissed. I believe we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: What the fuck?! You don’t promise someone that you’re going to get engaged and then not propose. You don’t get someone’s hopes up like that and then not follow through. You’re an asshole. I can’t fucking believe you did that!!! (Did I mention that I curse a lot when I’m angry?)

Him: Aren’t you going to go get lunch?

Me: WHAT??? You have nothing else to say? You’re a dick. (Pause). Aren’t you at least going to come with me? (My thinking was that I could continue my diatribe in the car).

Him: You really need to learn to do things on your own. (Note: He claims he said this to get me out of the house since he was running out of time on the chicken costume rental. I claim he said it to be an asshole.)

Me: FUCK. YOU.

And then I left to go get lunch. Mainly because I was hungry and way too angry to stay in the apartment. About 15 minutes later I came back home with lunch in hand and guess what? The jerk had locked the apartment and I had to stand outside, in the rain, fishing around for my keys while he got stay all nice and dry and smug inside the apartment. I was completely prepared to lose my mind on him but then, when I opened the door, I was stunned into silence.

The apartment was completely covered in lit candles and there he was before me…in a chicken costume, holding a series of signs with the last one that read “Will you marry me? Cluck, cluck”.

Yes, that’s right. I was proposed to by a 6″1′ chicken. And I’m pretty sure that I’m the only person to ever receive the words “cluck, cluck” in a marriage proposal. And I’m pretty sure I’m the only person to actually say yes to a proposal from Big Bird’s evil twin.

Of course, the only camera we had at the time broke as I was taking the picture of him. This probably should have been some sort of sign.

For the record, I did make him take off the head and actually say the words; being proposed to by a sign was just a little too…unorthodox (because, you know, a chicken suit is totally traditional). Also, he did not propose with a ring. For the three weeks after he proposed until I got my ring, almost no one believed me that I was engaged.

So, for those of you unsure that your proposal isn’t romantic or proposing is too expensive, rest assured that it is not. Of all the ostentatious proposals I’m aware of, mine was certainly the most unique and probably the cheapest. And that didn’t diminish its meaning one iota.

(Oh, and the reason behind the chicken suit? Let’s just say that I used some pretty colorful language during our argument 2 months prior and this was the least offensive costume he could find in relation to that.)