Queercents

“Spending is quick, earning is slow.” – Russian Proverb

For the past eight years, my wife and I have been self-employed.  We correspond at least quarterly with our CPA to ensure that we pay the correct amounts on our estimated taxes.  Since our business income and expenses can vary so wildly, we’ve pretty much given up on trying to forecast the number at the beginning of the year.

Our most recent communication with our CPA delivered some very good news.  Our daughter’s adoption, which was finalized in April, means we will qualify for the Adoption Tax Credit.   Since the adoption was considered a special needs adoption, and qualified for the Adoptions Assistance Program, we’ll be able to claim the full 2009 credit of $12,150.

That’s quite a windfall.

Although we knew that we’d be eligible for the Adoption Tax Credit when our daughter’s adoption was finalized, we didn’t count on it happening this year.  Even though she’s lived with us for nearly three years and was never going to be reunited with her birth family, a queer-unfriendly social worker turned what should have been a straightforward older child adoption into a year-long legal battle.  Even after we won the right to adopt, our agency stalled for another six months before finalization.

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“There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents…and only one for birthday presents, you know.” – Lewis Carroll

In just a bit less than three weeks, our daughter will celebrate her 14th birthday.  As usual, she’s hoping for a fun party and a pile of gifts.  In years past, we’ve managed to put together some nice, though not terribly extravagant, parties.  This year, our budget is much smaller since my wife hasn’t had a full time gig since the end of March, she’s retraining for a new career, and we are trying to avoid debt.

For the past three years, we’ve typically taken a small group of our daughter’s friends and family out for dinner for a moderately-priced meal.  One year, we went to a kid-friendly pizza restaurant filled with coin-operated games.  Another year, we took a group out to our daughter’s favorite Italian restaurant.  Last year, we took a small group out on an overnight camping trip.  We paid for everyone’s campground reservations and for most of the food.

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“Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do, and with them everything.” – Benjamin Franklin

Since my wife’s contact unexpectedly ended last March, we’ve had to make due with a substantial cut in income.  Although my wife is retraining for new career and has already found part-time work in her new field, our business’ monthly net income is down by roughly a third from where it was last year.

So we’ve had to make some cuts.

Surprisingly, we haven’t missed quite a few of the things we’ve completely dropped from our budget.

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“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship” – Benjamin Franklin

Earlier this summer, our almost-14-year-old began her own journey through financial implosion.  At the end of June, my wife and I learned that our daughter had spent every penny she had saved in her bank account and was completely out of cash.  This teen money catastrophe also happened to coincide with a change in our allowance policy, which has made for a somewhat impoverished summer for our child.

Our old program rewarded our kid with monthly pocket change just for breathing.  It was designed with the hope that she’d gain some money handling experience, and wasn’t based on homework, chores, or good behavior.  The new system, which was designed in hopes of encouraging good behavior and chores, is performance-based.  In other words, a lack of chores and good behavior equals no allowance.

So far, the new system has been great for our cash flow, but not-so-wonderful with regards to encouraging our daughter to behave appropriately or to complete her chores.  In the two months we’ve had this system in place, we’ve paid exactly zero dollars and zero cents in allowance.  Although we might have to pay this week, it’s been a bargain for us.

Obviously, the system isn’t working quite as well as we’d hoped.  We are learning that teaching money management skills to children isn’t so easy.

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“I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.” – John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Recently, my wife and I have had to cover a number of unexpected auto expenses.  Our 23-year-old station wagon has nearly a quarter of a million miles on it, and has suddenly needed quite a few repairs.  Since the end of April, we’ve had to replace the clutch, brakes and radiator.  We also had some minor suspension work done, repaired a blown head gasket, and paid for some minor adjustments when the car failed its bi-annual smog inspection.

Since the trouble started, we’ve spent close to $2,000 in repairs.  It’s a lot of money, but it would have been a lot more had we not been able to take advantage of our neighborhood economy.

Each time something has gone wrong, my wife and I have sat down and had the same conversation.  “Do we fix it, or do we junk it?”

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“Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures.  It is not coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.” – Lionel Poilane

In last week’s column, I mentioned that my wife and I were setting up an emergency food supply.  As part of our plan, we purchased a number of 5-gallon, food-safe buckets, and a special shelf designed to hold canned food.  Now, we are in the process of stocking up the larder.

Since we are stocking up not only to prepare for natural disasters, but for financial ones as well, we are only buying products we know we’ll eat.  If we won’t or don’t eat it as part of our regular menu, we aren’t going to buy it “just in case.”

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“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” – Arnold H. Glasgow

Although our personal financial situation continues to improve since my wife was out of work earlier this year, my wife and I aren’t entirely sure that our financial position is completely secure.  Despite the news reports that the nationwide recession is easing, we’ve seen too many signs of local problems to ignore.  Our town’s newspaper is filled with foreclosure notices.  One of our neighbors has been out of work for eight months and hasn’t been able to find a steady job.  Another neighbor, a woman in her 20’s, told us that most of her friends are out of work.

Things, at least for the moment, appear to be steady for us.  My wife has a part-time contract, good for several months.  I have a nearly full-time contract, that’s scheduled to continue until the middle of 2010.

We won’t starve, unless things suddenly change.

That thought has been weighing on our minds for quite some time, as we’ve repeatedly seen how suddenly things can change.  People in our neighborhood have unexpectedly lost their jobs, their health and even their homes, and we’ve realized that our tentative security could be lost just as quickly.

We’ve started to build an emergency food supply.

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“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” – Tom Bodett

This Friday, our teen daughter goes back to school.  In years past, this has resulted in a flurry of shopping and spending lots of money.  Many years have seemed like a virtual shopping orgy, with multiple trips for clothing and school supplies.

This year, because my wife has been without steady work for several months, we aren’t in a position to spend a huge amount of money on clothing and school supplies.  We’ve taken a really good hard look at our daughter’s wants versus her needs, and we’ve been addressing the needs only.

In years past, we’ve been given an extensive list of school supplies that were required for each student on the first day of class.  The very first year our daughter was placed with us, we bought everything on the list as requested.  We soon learned that only a few items from the list were needed immediately, and about half the items were never used at all.

If we’d waited to buy stuff until the teacher assigned work that required the extra supplies, we could have saved ourselves quite a bit of money.

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“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” –Hippocrates

Just over ten days ago, just as I was getting ready for my vacation, I got a very surprising letter from my credit card company.  It read:

Congratulations.

We’ve increased your credit line to $17,840.

It’s our way of saying thank you for maintaining such great credit.

You pay your bill on time every month.  You don’t exceed your limit.  You pay more than the minimum due whenever possible.  You’ve done everything right and we’re rewarding you for it.  After all, that’s what being responsible with credit is all about.  So we’ve raised your credit line on your [credit card] to $17,840.

The letter went on to inform me that my new limit was already in effect, suggested several ways I might want to utilize the card, and thanked me for being a loyal customer.

It took several minutes for the content of the letter to sink in.  When it did, I needed both hands to lift my jaw off the floor.  I had difficulty comprehending that a lender would see fit to trust me with an unsecured loan for so much money.  I had, after all, lost a home to foreclosure and filed for bankruptcy.  Didn’t that make a difference?  Were they nuts?

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“Vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you’ve been taking any longer.” – Unknown

This week, my wife and I are on vacation.  We didn’t actually plan to be on vacation, but when I spoke to our biggest client on Friday, he told us that he was going to be gone the following week, and it would be most convenient for him if we took our vacation at the same time.

We have five days off, a luxury we rarely see, but they came very unexpectedly.  We had no time to plan or to save for any type of real vacation.  Since this time off came on the heels of some unexpected expenses, and we are keeping our credit cards paid off, we basically have no money to fund any kind of travel.  Since this will likely be the only time we’ll have off until the December holidays, we need to make the most of the time we have.

It seems like whenever we have time off, we have no money, and when we have money, we have no time off.  The irony of the situation was further exacerbated by a letter I received Friday afternoon from my credit card company.  It read:

Congratulations.  We’ve increased your credit line [by $1,700].  It’s our way of saying thank you for maintaining such good credit.

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