{ Labor Day is Right }

A fast update on The Eternal House Remodel...this weekend we will be completing the exterior paint job and finalizing the picket fence design for completion next weekend. For those new readers, this project has been ongoing since 2002. However, the exterior paint job is our downward run. We bought a dreary grey house with no charm or character and for the most part all of the forced character has happened on the inside. But I've dreamed of a little yellow cottage for many many years and now it's finally happening. A very special thanks to our dear friends Gerry, Jeffrey and Jamie. They all worked so hard getting the house prepped, primed (not once but twice) and the first coat rolled. This weekend is merely trim and touch up. Without these fine friends, my little yellow cottage would still be just a dream.

{ How to Save and Swim at the Same Time }

How do you save or "pay yourself first" and still stay afloat with your bills? Honestly, that was a concept that eluded me for a LONG LONG time. We have been savings poor for most of our adults lives around here and yet, we own a modest home, have two cars that are paid off, and up until three weeks ago, had no credit card debt. We're not too bad off on the face of it.

But here's the reality check below the surface: our mortgage today is only $400 more than rent on our last apartment 10 years ago. We have no car loan today but up until 2 years ago we had always had a car loan and the mortgage. And yet today, we are earning more income than we were even 5 years ago. So, we are making more, with theoretically less debt and yet we still don't have adequate savings. What is that about?

Simply put we have fallen into the trap of the more we make the more we spend. In the last couple of months we had a family meeting and threw all the budget numbers out there and worked the numbers. We are now on board with the "pay ourselves first" concept and will be splitting all the "excess" (read: non essential) money evenly each month between a "locked" savings account (high penalties for early withdrawal before 12 months) and our newly acquired debt. In 12 months the debt will be gone (it's parked at a really low interest rate so I don't mind the finance fees for the short term) and we'll have 3 months of gross income saved.

Here's what we had to sacrifice: We'll only have dinner out once a month. If invited by friends we'll either decline or skip next month...twelve eat outs a year, period. We will only buy clothes we NEED and those new items will be replacing donated items. (Seriously, do I need 16 pairs of shoes when I wear the same three pair 5 days a week? I live in a rural community for goodness sake!) I will take household inventory like I used to do at my old retail shop and only buy necessary items with a list. No new toys or gadgets until the debt is paid off. If we have lived without it this long, a little longer won't hurt. Any new items for our house (because we do need lamps and other items since we've lived with almost no furniture for 5 yeas during the remodel) cannot exceed what is the cash envelope each month for "incidentals". (The smallest of all the envelopes, by the way.) If I LOVE something, it will have to wait until the incidentals envelope is big enough to buy it. The food/grocery thing sort of takes care of itself with our garden and CSA memberships and a stocked freezer of local chicken and beef and our canning. It's a time commitment but we wouldn't go back to processed foods. And the big trick is cash only. We converted back to little envelopes last month and when it's gone it's gone. That has worked relatively well. The only time I had to write a check was for the carpenter who built our new gate. Our lives are more simple now and we want to keep it that way.

Unless we begin to take our future well being more seriously, we will always be treading water when what we really need to be doing is swimming for the shore.

{ Your Cheering Squad }

For Lilli Blue, Francie and Patricia (and everyone else who emails me instead of commenting), this is your cheering squad to financial stability.

How's everyone doing with their budgets? Know where you are yet? Nudge, nudge... it's OK, I'll give you a couple of more days.

A friend and I were discussing different types of debt today and I just want to share a thought. Debt is debt. Out in the world you will hear things like, "well, there's good debt and bad debt" and while there is debt that can be advantageous from a tax standpoint everyone should contemplate CAREFULLY their debt ratio and what is too much and when you are rationalizing overspending. (Because TRUST ME, no one can rationalize overspending more than me, it's why this house remodel has taken a bazillion years.) Once you have your budget numbers squared away, it'll be easier to look honestly about spending habits, debt habits and if there are healthier options. So, get busy! I'm here to cheer you on!

{ Budget Budget Budget }

I've talked so much about the systems that we live in and how women and their worth and their valuations have an innate power to shift the economy and that all sounds really good...very academic. I'm not an idiot. I can rattle on and on about economic structures blah blah blah but the day to day reality is this: You can only spend what you have and still be OK financially. (I KNOW there are magic plastic cards in your purse, but I said "and still be OK financially".)

So, friends, today's question is How Much Do You Have? Can't spend it if you don't know. People that tell me they don't have a head for numbers and couldn't possibly do this are taking the easy way out. Add. Subtract. You can do this, really.

How To Build A Budget:

1. Gather all of your income sources - pay stubs, W2's, Investment Dividend Statements, alimony (do people get that anymore?) and child support. Can't find or don't save all that paper? Get the bank statement(s) for every checking/savings account that you have for the last 3 months.

2. Add those up and LOOK AT IT. Does that seem right? Round DOWN if it doesn't. (That way if you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.)

3. Compute your expenses - the monthly expenses like mortgage/rent/utilities are the easy ones. They don't change much. Scan your statements (both bank and credit card) for the last three months. Add up the categories you use (like gas, groceries, eating out, house supplies, clothes, travel). Look for the regular expenditures but jot down the not so common ones separately. Round up where you are uncertain. (That way if you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.)

4. Figure it out - Subtract your expenses from your income. Hopefully you end up with a positive number. If not, start asking yourself if the overages in the last few months are regular bad spending habits (eating out, eating out and eating out) or if they were one time, couldn't help it emergencies that aren't likely to happen again. EITHER WAY, if your debt outweighs your income you need to begin to cut back. Just like fried food, it'll catch up with you in the end.

5. If the number you have at the end is positive (whew hoo) then the FIRST THING you need to do is pay off any debt. No debt? Save something. Save anything. Every rich person in the world will tell you that they pay themselves first. For years I didn't know what that meant. It means, pick YOU over pretty shoes or eating out.

Like I said, we can pump ourselves up all we want about being empowered women but if you don't know what you make, what you spend and what your life costs to live, then you really have no power at all. Grab those calculators and get busy, girls.

{ Stopped Dead in My Tracks }

This has been me for the last 6 days...stuck in bed. On Sunday the 17th I awoke with a fever that kept going up and up and up. By 2:30 my family and one persistent neighbor (thanks, Laura!) had convinced me that with a temp above 103 degrees it was time to go to the ER. (In our community we have no weekend walk in clinics and a ferry ride to the mainland, well, that's for life threatening stuff. Our little ER has about 4 rooms and it was our county fair weekend to boot. But they were awesome. As my ability to breathe became slightly impaired due to the ever rising fever, they were on it. IV's, oxygen, chest xrays, the works. After several hours of IV fluids, drugs and antibiotics they sent me home. I slept for the first two days, waking only to the gentle cajoling of my family to drink or take medicine. Today, I feel much better but am still a bit weak.

My clients have been great about my mandatory week off. My tribe has rallied, delivering food, humor and love. It turns out that I had not one, but two infections. The secondary one was the one that brought me to my knees. My nurse practitioner scolded me yesterday for letting the primary infection go unchecked for so long but I honestly didn't even notice symptoms. My sister wrote me a lovely email yesterday reminding me that we are cut from the same type A personality cloth of our mother and that if we don't learn to stop and slow down ourselves, the Universe will do it for us. She was absolutely right and this was a good wake up call.

Time for meds with a big glass of juice and wee rest on the couch. Oh, and look three months of Food and Wine, Victoria and Romantic Homes magazines await!
~Steph

{ My, how the garden grows. }

I'm climbing down off the soapbox for just a moment to update you all on the garden project. Well, it's a mixed bag (or raised beds if you will). Admittedly I haven't resown as much as I should have but there is still time. The potatoes and onions are just fine. I'm letting the potatoes harden over in the bed. Squashes and zucchini may not make it, but I'm still holding out hope. If we don't get too much late summer rain, I'll have enough tomatoes to can at least 12-24 jars of sauce. Spinach and lettuce are still producing enough for daily salads but next year I'll need more variety. Honestly, if I didn't have my two CSA (community supported agriculture) portions this season, I wouldn't have even come close to having the garden feed us. But I've learned a lot for next season...mostly that I need to allocate more space and time to food growing and production and if we have a late, wet spring again I'll need to create more micro climate systems to assist and extend my season.

{ The Power of Value }

I've received a few emails from close friends expanding on the post below so I thought I'd take the conversation here on the blog one step further. My post about knowing your worth goes deeper than knowing your monetary contributions to this world. Don't get me wrong, knowing what you are worth is necessary but it's also just the first step to being powerful economically. Let me paint a picture from the world of micro business ownership and I'm sure you can extrapolate it to personal finances as well.

In a traditional business model a woman might be asked how much her company grosses or nets in any given time period, let's say a month. In my new model for instance, at home e-tailing a micro business, I can imagine that a woman might proudly answer that she nets $500-1000 a month (because now that you know your worth you can answer the question). A traditionalist may roll their eyes or laugh and ask questions about growth and how this owner intends to drive more business to the site, etc.

But now that you know your worth you can begin to explore the power of that worth. If that same woman no longer pays daycare costs or can pay off a student loan or credit card and can contribute to a Roth IRA and her over head is less than 10% of her net because she has learned to drop ship instead of carrying a lot of inventory and she has time for yoga or walking or writing or volunteer work or whatever to fill herself up as a person, she is miles and miles ahead of any large corporation that posts a quarterly loss or even no growth.

So many women have used a model that doesn't reflect their values as WOMEN to measure their worth and contributions. I'm not quantifying the traditional model used for centuries in this country to evaluate wealth. It has a place. But I am asking women to simply set aside that model and look at the power you have to create a new model of valuation that looks more like the life you live and then embrace the power it can bring you. Why can't two value systems co-exist? But if we don't see it ourselves then no one else will either.

{ What's Your Worth? }

When I hear women say things like, "I don't want to think about money," or "I hate the bookkeeping part of my business," I have two reactions. The first - as a professional bookkeeper- is sympathy and empathy. I get that for some of us, the bookkeeping part of our lives or business is work, perhaps it doesn't come naturally or isn't the "fun" part. That's why I have a thriving business and get paid to do something I love. The second, more private deep down response is, "Put your big girl panties on and get that done!" And here's why: a hundred years ago we couldn't vote, we couldn't own property, let alone businesses, because we WERE property and we had no money of our own.
Women are reinventing themselves and the world around them into new business models and a new consumerism, that flies in the face of those found on Wall Street. With technology and education they are reshaping what "having it all" means. They can stay home with the kids and run a successful business from the guest room or they can manage their money, pay their bills and shop from their i-Phones or Blackberries at the doctor's office or on a lunch break. They can join online book clubs and converse with women in other countries about universal experiences. This new era and generation of women isn't always intentionally making waves. Most days they're just putting one foot in front of the other. But the upshot of that is that simply, by living their lives, these women are changing the economy around them. They have a power of which they are not always cognizant.
The fact that women now outnumber men on college campuses, are the fastest growing demographic of new business owners and have firmly staked out their positions as entrepreneurs in online boutique e-tailing is no small matter or coincidence. But these are the same women who most likely cannot tell me how much money is in their checking accounts today and if I asked them what their net worth was, they'd most likely not be able or willing to answer. I'd even venture to guess that if I asked the women who own their own companies how much in inventory they have right now or what their net loss or gain for the first two quarters of 2008 was, perhaps only half would be able to answer. Women bring a different perspective to business and finance (personal or professional) that is necessary. We should not and cannot continue to move through the world by or in a preconceived, out dated male dominated methodology that doesn't reflect our values as women. All that I am advocating is that oblivion about money shouldn't be one of those core values. We've come far in 100 years and we owe it to women 100 years from now to continue to push the envelope.
I challenge every woman who reads this today to ponder this question: If you don't know how much your are worth then how does anyone else?

{ A New Soap Box }

I've always debated how much to share on this blog about what goes on deep in my head and heart. It's a fine line, you know? Yesterday, I was listening to one of my favorite writers and activists, Gloria Steinem on public radio, KUOW "Weekdays" http://www.kuow.org/listen/ . Something in her conversation woke something up deep inside of me that has been asleep for way too long.

You see, my background isn't in finance, I am academically trained in Women Studies - particularly women's history. My journey to finance came via entrepreneurialship and realizing (with cajoling from my own accountant) that in my own business I had a talent for balancing the books and then making the numbers tell me a story.

So as I listened to Gloria and then I went out to meet clients later, I realized that so many women - some who own businesses and others who don't - ignore their money. It's astounding to me that there are still women out their that think they "don't know anything" about money. Or worse, don't WANT to know. Are you kidding me? You can go to work and supervise 7 staff members, come home and fix dinner or you can be someones mom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with no vacation or sick days, and juggle all the play dates, doctor's appointments and preschool stuff, but you can't figure out how much money you have in the bank or if you have credit card debt? Seriously?
No. My new mission is to convince, cajole or harass women (and men) everywhere to begin a new relationship with their money. I may not know as much as Suze Orman but I know how to balance a check book! So, today begins a new direction for my little blog that only about 20 people read...we're going to make sure that we all retire with more than .10% of our annual wages in the bank and that we don't suffer in the process. What do you say? Are you with me?

{ My lovely assistant }

So, this is the fussy cat face I look at when I'm working each day. I thought I'd share with you all!

{ Food Inventory }

My friend Janette (kintrophy/parenting uphill) asked a question about the quantity of chicken we picked up this weekend and whether it's enough to last a year. No, is the simple answer. We will, before winter sets in, freeze half a side of beef, 30 chickens and a very small quantity of pork (ham hocks mostly for soup). If we are super lucky our friends fishing the north Pacific will come home with a bit of salmon. This will hopefully get us through until next June but it's all a guessing game this year. It's our first "locavore" year and we're not sure how much is enough yet. We are already having discussions about winter greens and winter fruits. Come January, I'm going to want green veggies. We have agreed that northern California is acceptable as our furthest south point of origin for food but even California doesn't produce broccoli in winter. We'll keep you posted on whether we can hold out or not.

{ Eating local can be a workout }

Picture this: a lovely Saturday afternoon drive up a pastorial island highway in Puget Sound on a sunny summer's day. Sounds nice, doesn't it? It is except the part where we arrive at our location at the top of the island with two fish coolers packed with ice and we load in 30 chickens (that were walking around yesterday) and two tom turkeys. We'll have the added bonus of UNloading them as soon as we get back home too. That's 200 pounds of poultry, just in case you didn't do the math. Eating local can be a workout!