smile when they ask you too and you'll get them expecting things

Happy Monday.
I did a stupid thing last week. Or actually, somehow I managed to do a stupid thing a couple of weeks ago, but because it was a stupid thing having to do with automatic transfers of funds, it didn't kick in until last week.
I have set up automatic transfers of money into various accounts, to coincide with my pay dates. Its really nice, an easy way to save money and stay on-budget or close to it. When I first set it up (sometime last year) I was really fanatical about checking every time I had a transfer set to go, to see what the balance was in each account, see when it had gone through, see how much was left in my "spending money" account, that sort of thing. But then I got used to it, and used to just having a certain amount left over after all was said and done with the transfers.
I got a notice from Sharebuilder (who I've been using for a couple of years now, but who I've only been automatically saving with for maybe five months) recommending that I check my account and "re-balance" to make sure I'm meeting my savings goals et cetera. I'm totally invested in Index funds through Sharebuilder, so there isn't really too much to do as far as "balancing", but the stock market is kind of tanking, and it has come to my attention that I am going to need to be investing in a new(-er, it will still be used, rest assured, but it will be a new-to-me) car in the near-er rather than farther future. So I decided to about halve my contributions to Sharebuilder and funnel the other monies into a "car fund". I thought I had gone about doing this correctly, but apparently I never canceled the original transfer-of-funds order for Sharebuilder, I just added another that was half as much. At the same time I set up a transfer into an ING account for half as much. So I got screwed on this one when I tried to withdraw the same money twice basically. I feel like such a doofus. I'm really lucky it didn't screw anything else up, but now I am waiting two more days for that money to get re-deposited into my spending money account so I can buy groceries.
Its always something, isn't it?

Whats the crisis compadre?

So the mid-life-crisis our fathers had has turned into a quarter-life or first-third-of-life or third-decade-of-life -crisis for our generation.
So many folks I know who are on the eve of their third decade seem to be taking a break or breaking things off or trying to change some huge thing about their lives right now--like where they live, or the industry they work in, or the company they keep. Its really kind of fascinating.
Myself, I don't know. My roommate and I were talking last night about making a list of things we want to do before we turn thirty (its kind of a big number, and if you're in your mid-twenties anyway, it has begun to feel land-mark-ish and like it is approaching rather quickly).
Maybe this comes from what they were saying in Time and People and other singular-word-named-publications when I was in high school: that we, as a generation, were growing up faster than our parents had (even with the drugs sex and rock'n'roll of their time)--we're all revved on group supervised activities created to improve our marketable skills and computers in our bedrooms, all jaded and promiscuous because of the easy availability of condoms and ecstasy since our early teens.
And maybe now we're just hitting the wall: we've been out of college for a decent handful of years and what has any of us accomplished? I know a lot of girls who have gotten married (and at least one who has subsequently gotten divorced) some are pregnant with their first child, others have dropped a sprog already (sorry, that sounds cruder than I meant it to). But are we where we want to be?
Is anyone ever where they want to be?
Has anyone even figured out where they want to be yet? I sure haven't. And that is certainly worrying. Shouldn't I know by now? If I don't know now, will I ever?
I have several female friends who each, singularly, have a fantasy of a male savior. Of some guy sweeping in and taking care of their life, marrying them, taking them away from the work-a-day world and up into something infinitely preferable: marriage and being a stay-at-home-mom seems to be the general way this particular fantasy ends. I can't really stomach that one, myself. Its just too fatalistic. Too little control of your own destiny is disgusting, as far as I can see. But for these friends its not really the end (hazy-misted and far away as it is) that matters, its the idea that something else might exist within reach, that gets them through a dead-end day at a dead-end job. Keeps the crisis at bay.
And what keeps my own personal crisis at bay? Well, I'm trying to see life as a work in progress and not freak out too much about level-setting and goalposts. I think its important to remember that the ultimate goal of this particular journey is a graveyard somewhere (oh I'm just so happy. What pleasant imagery, huh?). But seriously: thats what we get to at the end, no matter what sort of crisis we have or avert today. So you might as well enjoy it while you've got it.

measured in verticle inches

Do you ever have those mornings where once you get out of bed nothing else is easy? Not having trouble getting out of bed, but upon leaving your bedroom being suddenly sapped for energy and ready to return and stay? I'm currently having one of those. Oh yeah.
So easily distracted and uninterested in it all.
Oh and did I mention theboy called from NZ? Do I even have to mention? It was really good to talk to him blah blah blah but then after that I didn't even have to get drunk to feel like I have a hangover/got hit by a truck in my sleep last night.
well, I'm a dipshit, what can I say. And also this is officially the world's weirdest "breakup" (yes it deserves quotes. it is not all in my head. I swear. I hope) I mean. why does every conversation end with "I love you"? whats up with that? I keep making ultimatums to myself about moving on or (how stupid is this?!) what to say to him when he comes back (oh yeah. in a year? or more. I'm such an ass)
Do you ever do that (I say that like other people read this thing. I have some ego today, let me tell you) ? I mean, plan a conversation, or plan responses to imaginary questions? Sort of get your story straight or provide your own imaginary witty banter as you get ready for your day (imagine: putting on your socks and having this conversation "what? oh these socks, hah, my mother made them. they are very fuzzy but quite warm. yes yes so funny" as if anyone is ever going to ask you who made your socks--but if you, too have stupid imaginary dialog, you too should try blogging!)
But anyway, yeah. I have this list of things I want to do, and indicators that I am generally an ass when it comes to making decisions that relate to men (case in point: mr.goodbye-i-don't-owe-you-anything, whose cell phone I paid for for three months after our breakup, who I loaned money to so he could break our lease (losing me the security deposit, which of course I had paid in full for us both) and who owes me money to this day--I try to forget about that one most days, but he certainly was a series of lessons learned).
I don't even know if any of the plans are worth it--am I just trying vainly to make myself worthwhile? How lame is that? I wish a dinosaur would eat me.
But the conversation I like to pretend I would have with Theboy goes a little like this
(him): I missed you! I want you back!
(me, all calm-cool-collected): oh i don't know, I've grown so accustomed to not having you around.
(him, obviously frantic and repentant): oh no! please take me back!
(me, kind and sad): well you see, there are things i would like to do before i get seriously involved with someone again. i need time for myself.
(him, dropping to the ground in despair): is there anything i can do?
...yeah, i know. fantastic isn't it? my imagination is rather trite today. maybe after that last bit he should get eaten by a dinosaur. put him out of his misery.
too bad i am too vengeful to be "kind and sad" like the script calls for up there.
also i've never been referred to as "calm cool and collected" either, save for in my little fantasy- mind-scripts. I'm more likely to attack someone with a spoon or cry uncontrollably. oh well.

we're gonna gonna

Sometimes life is easy to forget about. Sometimes you just sort of roll with it and things go along fine and you don’t even need to look deeper or think that maybe you ought to be finding a reason or drive or need to push you onward outward forward.

But then things get slow, there is nothing on television (or you don’t have one) and your boyfriend is out of town (or he left you) or you read all the books from the library already (or the ones you bought from Amazon still haven’t arrived) and then you start to wonder. What in the hell should I be doing with myself anyway? Shouldn’t there be something: a driving desire to write and have the writing be readable / be read by someone, or a craving for entrepreneurial enterprises: to go out on your own and start a dynasty, a hegemony, an institution of a small business? Shouldn’t I need something like that? Surely it would be a hell of a lot easier to get up in the morning if I could just picture something that concrete.

I think often in novels the main character has such a drive, such a need to succeed and re-create themselves in such an image of success. But I am not sure if that isn’t just a plot device rather than a common life plan. Damn it.

Well, I guess at least that means that I shouldn’t feel so bad for taking so long to figure mine out.

the cookie in the cookie jar

When I was in graduate school I got kind of obsessed with personal finance literature. I don't know exactly why--I know the first book I read on the topic was some Suze Ormond thing and it left me with more questions than I had started with, so I went looking for another book, and after that one another, and then once I found out they existed, for blogs on the subject(and there are lots of them, very good ones) and web pages and the like. I am fascinated by it, and possibly if I had discovered it earlier I might have ended up with a degree in economics or in the field of financial planning.
Occasionally I look at academic programs and think about going back, but from this vantage point it doesn't make that much sense--I already like what I do, and it would cost me a fair amount of money and time take that path and see if it was really as interesting as it seems at first glance.
So instead, I keep reading, and doing my little "run numbers" sheets (occasionally also referred to as "bistro math" or "Cait's ridiculous percentage obsession") and trying to figure out what I should be doing with what I've got. It changes a lot. Every time I read something new I want to integrate it into my planning and also I don't want to be totally in the thrall of minute finance at every waking moment. I like the idea of simplicity and automation where it comes to financial things (I read about that someplace early on, of course).
For my first two years out of school I focused solely on getting rid of my credit card debt, I got rid of it for good (fingers crossed) early last year. Then I started on the current quest: a 60-40 split of income; where I live on roughly 60% of my take home pay and save the other 40% of it in various vehicles (high-interest savings, CDs, and Index funds predominantly). Incidentally this doesn't count my pre-tax 403b plan: into that I had been putting 8% of my gross income (with an employer match for the first 7%) . So I've been doing alright. Generally I'm pretty proud of myself. But then I read something new; for instance the fact that the limit for pre-tax account contributions this year is $15,500, and my measly 8% of my measly income doesn't even come to half of that. Also, I'm not debt free by any measure: I had to take out some considerable loans to complete graduate school, and during my debt-repayment phase I was sending double payments every month to the folks that hold those loans. But this fall I had a talk with my uncle, who was outraged that I was paying double (and in June was technically all paid up for the current year) on a loan that was only earning 2.65% interest. He said I was doing myself a disservice by not saving or using that money for myself, and education debt being considered "good debt" it was the kind to have around. I thought about it for awhile, and then I reached my 36th on-time payment and qualified for a 1% interest rate reduction and decided that I could make minimum payments on a loan earning 1.65% interest, let it live forever and be okay with it. So now I am, and I'm taking that money and hopefully offsetting an increase in my pre-tax 403b, from 8% up to 15%. Well, I say that but I think at the same time I may also have put that extra money into an index fund...I rebalanced my 40% savings scheme and set it up so that an estimated 25% of it is going into index funds (and of course the stock market is tanking...so thats not the smartest thing ever I suppose, but over the long term it should give me a decent return, again, fingers crossed) and the rest is sort of unevenly distributed between savings for a new car in about two years and a house in about five and a "fun" fund (about $25 a month) for the misc good time stuff that I will likely never buy.
Does any of this make sense? Its hard to say. I am not necessarily very good at keeping track of this stuff: I am not 100% sure how the increase in pre-tax savings is going to affect the size of my next paycheck, but I want to at least try to get a little closer to the maximum next year, because there is hope that I am young enough to have compounding interest working in my favor and helping me into early retirement. Which is, at least sometimes, a goal of mine.