In defense of the cleaning lady

These days my BF and I are doing our best to cut expenses wherever we can, but there is one expense that we both agree is necessary, no matter what other people say…My cleaning lady.

Even when I was living alone with my cat in a one bedroom apartment, I had my cleaning lady.  She came every 2 weeks for a couple of hours and took care of all of the grunt work.  My cousins (stay at home moms) used to tease me and say that they just couldn’t understand how I couldn’t manage when they had whole families to clean up after and I only had myself.  I tried many times to explain that I worked full time, and did a lot of overtime, so all of the errands that they did during the day, I had to cram into my evenings etc. etc.

I will also willingly admit that I despise cleaning, I have never been a tidy person, and no matter how hard I try to discipline myself, I just don’t care enough.  I love having a clean and pretty living space, but when push comes to shove, it’s low on my list of priorities.

But it was also more than that.  The feeling of coming home after a long day at work to a spotless home is worth every penny.  I’ve had my current cleaning lady roughly 6 years, so she knows me, and how I like things organized.  She pays attention to the little details and honestly gives the impression that every 2 weeks, a fairy godmother has gone through my home giving me a clean slate for the next 2 weeks,

Now that I have the BF and 2^nd cat full sharing my space, plus the step kids on weekends and bigger apartment, she has really become indispensable.  Especially since she is scheduled for the Tuesday following the weekends with kids, and we have moved her up to 3 hours each time. 

The fact that we don’t have to worry about scrubbing floors or toilets etc. gives us the chance to be fully present with the kids when they are there, instead of worrying about cleaning up after them.  The kids spill something, no big deal, I wipe it up with a rag to get most of it, but it doesn’t make me mad because I’m not thinking « Dammit, I just mopped ».

This past weekend I was watching a friend’s 10 month old baby while she was in the hospital.  Needless to say, at the end there were carrots mashed into the carpet and fingerprints all over any glass or screen within baby reach, but I wasn’t stressed, I was able to focus 100% on comforting a baby who was very stressed out because she missed her mom.

I haven’t even gotten to how having her means that my BF and I never fight about domestic chores. He does the dishes, I do the laundry, and we both pick up after ourselves.  We each only have to worry about one main housekeeping task, so when we get home from work, we can just enjoy each other.

It also helps that I never have to worry about the stress of having people over unexpectedly, since the worst case scenario is that there are dishes in the sink.

I don’t consider my cleaning lady an employee who does my grunt work, she is an essential part of the team that helps my family run smoothly, and me keep my sanity.  I will be cutting out many other things before I touch that expense.

September month end

Last night my BF and I had our first month end talk.  For the past few weeks, we have been on a sort of spending fast, trying to curb our impulse buys.  We did pretty well actually, better than we expected for the first month.

All in all, we only had 2 impulse incidents.  The first was when we went to a festival with the kids.  We had planned a picnic lunch and brought water bottles to avoid kiosk junk food, but when we got there, we found out that there was a boil water advisory for the town.  The bottle we had brought lasted for most of the day, but on the way home we bought some drinks and baby carrots at the grocery store, grand total of 10$.  The other was when we were rushing between dropping off the kids and heading for an out of town event.  Neither of us had eaten lunch and we wouldn’t be served dinner until 8, so we made a stop at McDonald’s.

More importantly, we stayed within 50$ of our planned budget, and reduces our spending by over 200$ compared to last month.  Woo-freakin-hoo!

One other thing we noticed was that in total between the two of us we had made 15 trips to grocery stores, 15, in a month.  We decided that our next plan of action is to plan our meals better and reduce that by half.

I think the best part of this whole thing is that now that we are open about our finances, we are working as a team, which makes it a whole lot easier, kind of like having a workout buddy, but for your budget. 

The money talk - Part two

I think we were both surprised and relieved at the information that came out.  When I analyzed our joint spending for the past 7 months, we saw that a huge chunk of the overspending was related to the new apartment (moving costs, furnishing the extra space etc.) and the kids (we set them up with clothes and pretty much everything they need at our place so that they don’t have to have luggage when they come and see us.)

The good news about that is that it was 95% one-time expenses.  The apartment is furnished and decorated, and neither of us are the type of people who are constantly repainting and redecorating.  My old apartment stayed pretty much exactly the same for 6 years.  As for the kids, thanks to some help from the people around us and some bargain hunting on my part, they are fully equipped for at least 2 more growth spurts.

The other main areas were food and hygiene products.  The funniest part of the conversation was when we realized that we had been buying a lot of stuff individually that we could have been buying the same.  We both thought the other was brand specific when it came to shower gel etc., and it turns out neither of us are, so right there we can start buying bigger sizes and common products.

As for food, we decided to make an effort to eat together more often, we would buy a lot of ready-made stuff, and different stuff, and we realized that it would be much cheaper if we would just plan a bit.

We also made a pact to rein in spending.  We decided that we would discuss all spending, and track all spending, it may seem extreme, but in just the past week I know I have reduced impulse spending a lot just by having the thought of having to justify it to someone.  We don’t plan to do this forever, just long enough that we can discipline ourselves a bit better and become more aware of our, and each other’s spending habits.

So that’s the plan, I think it’s a good one, here's hoping

The money talk – part 1

This week, after almost a year of living together, my boyfriend and I had the money talk.  This is a talk that I have never had with anyone, never feeling the need or urge to show my finances to my significant other.

It started the other night, when my BF came home very discouraged about his finances. 

He makes a decent salary, but pays a hefty amount of child support, which gobbles up roughly 40% of his net income, meaning that when all is said and done, he takes home less than someone on minimum wage.

I had been aware of his income, and he of mine, because we did have a discussion at the beginning of our relationship about how we would handle the bills and whether or not he was ok with me bringing home more than him.  I earn an above average but not huge salary for an admin assistant.  At this discussion, he said that he would have to deal with it since pretty much any woman with any job was going to out earn him because of the child support.  We decided that we split everything 50/50, since he had already been in the situation of supporting someone else (the ex) and did not want to be on the receiving end of that.

There are only 4 areas where bills that are not divided evenly

·         Food – I am a vegetarian, so he pays 100% for all his meat, unless we are having guests over for dinner, in which case I pay half.

·         Apartment insurance – since I own more of the stuff in the apartment than he does, we based the bill on percentage of total value, with a stipulation that in case of a claim, we each receive that same percentage of the payout.  This bill is split 65/35

·         The cleaning lady – we both agree that she is a non-negotiable expense, and forego cable to pay her. She comes for 3 hours every 2 weeks, mostly doing the heavy duty cleaning, leaving us with laundry, dishes and general picking up.  In order to ease his finances a bit he pays 1/3 of the bill, but he does more of the day to day cleaning.  I do laundry.

·         Kids expenses – If the item is necessary to the kids (ie: food, clothes, primary bedding) he pays 100%.  If the item is optional (ie: toys, books, extra clothes, bedroom decorations) we pay 50/50.

As you can see, we already had a big part of the financial talk done, but we had kept two things private: debt and spending, and we realize now that it was very stupid of us to not have had this discussion.

Me, I’m about 9000$ in debt from various sources, with about 750$ in my accounts.  I’ve had this amount of debt for a while, and the main reason it hasn’t budged is that I would often buy something for the both of us and not ask for his part, because I felt guilty.  I’m not sure if I felt weird for earning more, or that it just felt so much like I was spending my hubby’s money like some 50s housewife, but in reality, I assumed way more expenses than I should have.

Him, well, he’s mostly been overspending and underplanning. He’s in debt around 2500$, but has about 1500$ in his bank account.  He makes enough money to pay all of the concrete bills, but doesn’t plan for any extras, even though he spends on those extras anyways.

So after he came home, the other night, worried about how he was gonna pull off living the lifestyle he wanted, paying his own way etc. I saw an opportunity and jumped on it.  I told him that I too was not in the best of circumstances, and that maybe we should just lay it all out in the open and hash it out.  Then work together on a plan to help us both gain a better financial stability.

Just business

I’ve been secretly stressing inside about this for a while now, and today I got the confirmation that what I’ve been suspecting, what I’ve feared, is true.

As you know, in the past couple of years I haven’t been so lucky in the job department.  In 2010, I left my fairly secure yet frustrating job, hoping for something better.  I had been there a total of 5 years.  I found a new job pretty quick, at a company that’s employee retention was fantastic, the average was 12 years. 

Eight months later, my department was sold, and I was out of work.  Nothing against me, they said, I was a great worker and they would give me great references, it was just a business decision.  This happened the same week I met my BF.

I spent a few months on unemployment, taking the time to redo my resume (which since I had been out of work a total of 4 months in 10 years at that point, was in need of a revamp), and figure out what I wanted to do. 

Then I found a great job at a non-profit coop.  I was over the moon, I thought I had found something that I could really sink my teeth into and make great.  What I didn’t know was that it was already sinking fast, and that it was so far gone, that no amount of work or will on my part could have made it work. Nothing against me, just business.

After that I went to a complete disaster that lasted all of 2 weeks before we decided to part ways.  At this point I was battling really hard against the depression knocking at my door.  This is a hard thing to do when you find yourself unemployed 3 times in one year, through no fault of your own.

I had never ever been unemployed for this long.  Before this I had never even been fired or lost a job, I had always left to improve my situation.  I was trying so hard not to sink into depression, I didn’t want my great new BF (who at this point had just moved in with me) or the kids to see me like that, but I was starting to crack.

Then I found my current job, which I love more than any job I’ve had in the last decade.  I was replacing someone whose only reason for leaving was that the office had moved too far from where she lived.  She cried on her last day, and now I understand why.  When I started here (December 2011), I was told that usually there were 2 admin assistants, and that one was working onsite at a major project, but that she would be back the following fall, and that seemed oh so far away.

Since then, I have done very well on my own, doing the work of 2, not needing any help, and that may be my undoing.  Here we are, fall, and the other admin will be coming back soon, the project is over, and they are starting to wrap up.  The thought crept into my head a couple of weeks ago, they probably won’t need 2 admins, and she has seniority.  I went to talk to the boss, and he confirmed that I had grasped the situation.  The economy is not so great; there is less work, and less staff.  If no new major projects come in before or soon after she comes back (which could be anywhere from September to November) they will have to make a decision, and she has seniority.  Nothing against me, just business.

I remember how he told me in my interview that what stressed him about my resume was that I had had a lot of jobs in the past decade, and I had explained the circumstances, but that doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t look good and that many employers may not give me a chance to explain that most of them were not my doing.

It was the same thing over and over last year.  The jobs don’t last as long as I’d like, so I have to job hunt, but my job hunt is impeded by the fact that I have had « too many » previous jobs.

I’m kind of sick of saying « it’s not my fault », even though it’s not, and I am trying really hard not to think about it too much, hoping that a big project will come our way and we will have enough work for two, or that for some reason the other admin doesn’t want my job, or anything that would mean that I don’t have to start all over for what feels like the millionth time. 

I try not to think about it because I don’t want the depression to get a head start creeping into my mind, but when you have battled depression and suicidal thoughts for your entire adult life, it seems to get harder and feel more pointless every time.

So I’ll try and focus on the good things, the things that are not part of any previous cycle, hoping that maybe this too is not the same cycle as before, that everything will work out.  I'm going to try and hope for the best, while planning for the worst.

Feb 1st goals update

Goal #1 – Gratitude

Hmmm, not doing so well on this one, I will have to focus a bit more.

Goal #2 – Money

I’ve been reading (and doing the exercises) in Shoo Jimmy Choo, so far so good J (9730$ as of February 1^st)

Goal #3 – Weight

I started doing a 1 hour Zumba class on Wednesdays; so far I love it.  I also started a vegetable based protein diet.  After 1 week, 1.5lbs gone.

I have also been on/off sick the past couple of weeks, every time I feel 100% the BFs kids re-infect me, but it’s worth it.  Last weekend we had an extra day together to celebrate my cousin’s daughter’s 3^rd birthday.  Loads of fun was had J

Goal #2 – Get out of debt

Right now I am carrying a lot of debt.  Part of the reason I’m still in debt is the relative instability of 2011.  Four jobs in one year with various periods of unemployment, mixed with the fact that I have yet to establish an emergency fund meant that I was unable to reduce my debts.  On a brighter note, they didn’t increase much, only by about 250$ total.

I don’t know why it freaks me out so much to put the total amount here, maybe because I talk to no one about my financials, not even my boyfriend, but here goes.  As of today, I owe 9562$ total between credit cards and a loan (it was just over 10 000$ at Christmas). 

Wow, it looks like a lot when I put it out there, which is the main reason I am doing this.  I want to make myself more accountable.

My goal is a two parter.  The first is to be debt free for 2013, with a medium term goal of being credit card debt free for July.  I picked July because that is when my BF and I are going to be moving in to a bigger apartment, and I’d like to have squeaky clean credit cards by then.  Even though we already live together, it feels more like a real beginning in July since it will be ‘our’ place, with room for everyone, and not my single gal apartment that we all just cram ourselves into.

I know that my situation does not seem major compared to most bloggers in the personal finance genre, but the main difference (at least from what I have seen) is that I have no formal education past high school, and therefore make significantly less  than a lot of PF bloggers.  I make about 32000$ per year, and this is relatively recent.  A year and a half ago I was making 23000$.  Last year I didn’t make much at all since I was unemployed for a big chunk.

Also, up until a few months ago, I had not lived with another person in about a decade, so I was making a very basic salary as well as paying all expenses by myself.  No matter how frugal you are, you get to a point that you can’t scrimp anymore.  I also grew up in a household on welfare, with no knowledge of credit etc., so I have been learning most stuff as I go.

The best thing about growing up poor is that your notion of what is essential is very different than a lot of people.  I never had a washer or dryer at home, never had a dishwasher or air conditioning, never had cable on a regular basis, and anything extra I wanted I had to figure out a way to pay for it myself.

So this year is the year I do it, so far since Christmas I have put 500$ towards my debt, and plan to keep throwing everything I can at it.