So as of today, I'm shy just $252 of my Citi Thank You card spending goal, and I just another week and a half to spend that. I'll likely wind up at Shop Rite and just buy more gift cards. All I can say is, it's going to be one heck of a bill...about $1,500, but I must (and will) pay it in full.

Not much else new.

I did an interesting legal focus group last Friday at the law offices of a firm trying a negligence case. Two of their attorneys presented both sides (they didn't tell us which side they were actually representing til it was over) to about 10 of us and we discussed and decided the case. And they paid us $100. I'd love to do more of those but you don't see these too often.

I learned about it by seeing a full-page ad in the local paper, which i decided was reason enough to renew my Sunday only subscription for another $20, something I'd been debating.

Freelance work has been dead. I THINK I'm working the polls in my hometown a week from today, but registrar hasn't confirmed that yet. I'll give it a few more days and then call her Friday if I haven't heard from her. My only worry is that she finds enough other people and somehow overlooks me, despite my calling with my interest as soon as I heard the budget was defeated in the first go-round.

I'm doing something tonight I haven't done in a VERY long time...meeting a strange man for coffee. Potential friend. I'm reluctant to get involved with anyone becus even if they're understanding of your underemployed situation, I doubt they could understand my desire to spend NOTHING extra. Nothing. And I don't want to be a leech on someone else. I feel like there are so many things I'm deferring that I just can't justify frivolous stuff like...coffee or meals out.

Over 2 years after my layoff, I finally got around to asking my old boss's boss for a Linked In recommendation. I knew he would say something really good about me, and he had a pretty weighty role at my old employer. He was the one who hired me, and the one who laid me off. I guess I felt a little funny asking him, for that reason, but more recently I figured, what the heck. I always thought very highly of him. He's very personable, very intelligent, very capable and I must say, I felt personally attracted to him. For some reason, there were a lot of people in my old group at the company who had a strong disliking for him. Especially one who I worked very closely with. So it was hard to remain objective; I never really saw or experienced any of the bad things that were said about him but I often wondered how people's perceptions of the same person could be so skewed.

Anyway, I was very pleased to finally hear from him a few weeks after i asked for the LI reference; he's going to write one for me, he's just been busy.

I managed to transplant three silky (or gray) dogwood seedlings spreading out from the mama plant to a bare area on the hill out back where I had to have the damaged sugar maple taken down. I don't know if they'll make it or not; it was a real bear digging in the soil which was compacted by roots of poison ivy, lots of brambles nad other stuff. It'd be nice to have a small grove of silky dogwood growing there rather than invasives of every stripe.

I may try to sell more silky dogwood seedlings as well as lily of the valley pips and pachysandra cheap on Craig's List. Also could divide my blue milkweed and sell some of that too.

At home chillin' after the contract job interview this am.

It was a long drive...it took me an hour and 20 minutes to get there. it's tied with another job I had years ago for longest commute ever. I found myself wondering on the ride home if I could stand to do this 5 days a week. It was all highway; if there was ever a serious backup, I'm sure it could take even longer.

I met with 2 people, both of them contract workers themselves, in the cafeteria of the company, and also briefly met a third. This is the new reality. Corporate America has fared very well in this economy, and part of their success is due to increasingly hiring contract workers to get the job done that used to be done by salaried employees. I wonder sometimes how this is even legal, because they're reversing what, like a hundred years of worker rights? (In a similar vein, labor unions fought many battles to win benefits and salaries only to see at least one outspoken state governor recently throw it all out the window in the name of cutting costs.) So where does this lead the average employee? If your employer doesn't provide your health insurance and you happen to be unmarried or your spouse doesn't have a good plan, you're left scrambling to find something that approaches "affordable."

Anyway, back to the interview.

They were both pretty friendly. However, I have a somehwat different impression of the job based on what the recruiter had told me. It would be very challenging, because it's both left brain/right brain demanding. Half the job is needing to know how to write well, and I have no qualms about that at all, but the other half is having the ability to fairly quickly absorb and understand how their website is organized, the Internet architecture, if you will, and then also learning a variety of software tools that are used to accomplish different things. That's the part that intimidates me a little. I never really considered myself especially tech-savvy, although I use both Macs and PCs. I mostly use MS Office Suite, plus a little Quark and FileMaker which I learned at my current p/t job. I also have used a few content management systems.

They didn't seem to expect that I'd know it all now, but wanted to make sure I had the experience from other similar situations that would help me pick it up. All in all, it seemed to go well. I'm waiting to hear back from the recruiter, who i know was over at the job site.

As for the phone interview, it wasn't really much of a phone interview. Just like at Pru, it seemed like she'd already made up her mind after seeing my resume and had already decided she wanted me to come in for the group interview, and she sounded very rushed. The start date, based on what i learned today, has been pushed back by a few days, which is good, becus in the event i do get an offer, i'd then have to do a urine test and background check, and i told the recruiter I really want to give my p/t employer at least a week's notice, which is all there will be time for, if that.

I'm sort of hoping to learn something definitive before this week is out. Like maybe tonight/tomorrow.

If I DONT get the job, I think I may be somewhat relieved. I know if i get an offer I will definitely take it becus it's the right thing to do on many different levels, but I have huge concerns about the long commute and my ablity to learn the job quickly.

I learned something else not too good about the p/t job i have now...since we're working so effiiciently, but possibly becus that's just how they scheduled it, they will be temporarily laying us off for the entire month of January and then rehiring us in February to start the next round of (3) books.

I had mentioned to the other gal who has my job my concern that we were doing so well we might just be working ourselves out of a job and she said oh, no, when they hired you part-time, that means year-round work and I said not necessarily. she actually asked the question at an opportune time and that's when we learned we'd have a no-income January. We can collect unemployment on that, but since the pay is so piddly to start, it will be very little.

There's an opportunity for me to do a roughly 4 month contract job for a large employer in my area. The job would gross about $6,066 a month, or $24,266 for the 4 months. Then, presumably, I'd be done, and back to looking for a job.

If I took that job, I'd have to quit my part-time job at 25 hours a week for $375 gross a week (or $1,625 a month or $6,500 for the same 4 months).

I think I should take the full-time job, but I'd have to let go of my lifeline, the p/t job. It's not a slam dunk decision, but here are my thoughts why I should take the f/t job:

1. Having worked for a big company looks good on a resume and could open up more doors down the road.

2. Possibility it could lead to longer term work. (One can hope.)

3. I would switch to recruiter's health insurance plan so that when the job ended it would reset the COBRA clock that determines how many months I can continue on COBRA.

4. While my current p/t job is supposedly permanent, not temporary, a recent conversation i had with manager indicates the company is on shaky ground and barely breaking even. Building is up for sale and owners could choose to retire at any time. For all I know, that's their plan, to close down the business when the buidling sells.

Even though the pay is much less, I'm a little nervous about giving up what APPEARS now to be something that would last much longer than 4 months, but I can't really count on that.

I'd be giving up a p/t job with partial work at home and easy, back roads commute for a daily commute of an hour (maybe more with traffic?) but at least in the summer it'd be daytime driving.

5. Working there and then losing the job at end of term would i think qualify me for more unemployment benefits. Not that I want to forever be reliant on benefits, and I so want to work full-time, but I need it if I'm not working.

I calculate 15 weeks of work grossing $21,000, or $15,360 net. If I continued my uber-frugal living habits and existed on minimum monthly expenses of $2,431 a month during that time, I could cover expenses AND possibly save as much as $6,917 for a rainy day. (I would spend considerably more on gas, though.)

Your thoughts?

That's because I needed to charge up my Citi Thank You card, so I purchased $200 worth of Trader Joe's gift cards and $300 worth of Shop Rite gift cards, along with my usual groceries.

I calculate that brings my total spending up to about $1300, so I anticipate I may still need MORE gift cards in the next few weeks.

I regret having to do it this way (for the $250 rewards), because next month I'll be faced with one whopper of a credit card bill totalling about $1500. And I'll have to pay it in full.

Oh well, lesson learned. If you're going for the rewards, take it seriously. Don't waste the first month's worth of spending on another credit card, as I did.

There was a full page ad in the local paper by a local law firm looking for people to do a focus group/mock trial, and they'll pay $100. I was interviewed over the phone and then supposedly they'll let you know either way. It's this Friday night. I'd love to do this.

Also unsure whether they'll let me do the poll work again at the 2nd budget vote. No one's gotten back to me.

I had a reason to talk to the temp agency that offers my health insurance through COBRA. June 1 there's going to be a big increase....11.5%, she said, in my premiums. SO NOT looking forward to that. I had calculated a 7% increase, but no, we're higher than the national average.

I'm kind of freaking out a little becus the unemployment benefits that i so carefully calculated would last til mid-June may not last past next week!

When i called in to report my weekly earnings, they said the state unemployment rate fell below the critical 8% threshold, which means federal benefits end or something. It depends on whether you're on the federal EB program or state EUC program, and i have no idea which one i'm on, or which "tier" (1 of 4) i'm on. I have to call in tomorrow, if the system will let me. I may have to wait til week's end. I'm super nervous. Shit may be hitting fan sooner than I planned for.

Just now got word from a recruiter I know about a 4 month temp job for someone going on maternity leave. It's an hour drive, no matter, would love to do it. Full-time, would be good pay, and I could switch to Aquent's health plan when i started the job so that, after the 4 months of work ended, my COBRA (i believe) would start anew. Right now, my COBRA ends June of next year; I'd like to reset the clock for another 33 months so i at least don't have the loss of COBRA as another worry. I know the letter she sent me about the job is a form letter that surely went out to a bunch of people she felt were qualified, so who knows what my chances are. Will call her tomorrow.

Aside from job anxieties, it was a pretty good day today. Besides hitting Trader Joe's and Shop Rite, I returned some DVDs at the library. I finally got around to watching Twilight, just so i can stay abreast of pop culture, and actually, i liked it very much. This prompted me to check out the 2nd and 3rd sequels, Eclipse and whatever the other one is called. I'll be watching the 2nd tonight.

Speaking about movies, it's amazing how you can get a whole lot of star power and have a total flop of a movie. Like "The Walker." It stars Woody Harrelson, Lily Tomlin and Kristin Scott Lewis (did i get that name right?) I mean, all 3 great actors, but this was one SNOOZE of a movie. i didn't even bother watching it all the way through.

Yardwork-wise, I was able to sow some grass seed in 2 medium-sized areas of my lawn, one where pachysandra was making a mess of things and then another area that used to be part of my veggie garden but no longer is since i needed to move the fence further away from a tree that's growing a little too well. If I didn't sow grass (like i need MORE to mow?) it would be weeds, so....

Sowing grass seed is actually hard work. Pulling out weeds, loosening the soil and raking it smooth, putting hay over it so the birds don't get the seed and then watering it....frankly, i'm exhausted.

What I would like to do tomorrow, my last free day before going back to work, is move a small viburnum I planted a few years ago (3?) in the wrong place, where most of the sun is blocked by larger shrubs. It's also in the middle of the lawn and just another thing to have to mow around. I'd like to move it to a spot that opened up in the back yard, against the stone wall. A tree came down in a major storm and it would seem to be a good spot for it.

Here's one of the bluebirds frequently seen in my yard. They're nesting in the box... hope you can see it...shot through the window...

So after spending $80 on virus repair last week, I was debating whether or not to ask for reimbursement from my p/t employer. I don't think I'd ever have gotten the virus if I hadn't been doing work-related research on a particular website for them.

I told them what happened this past week, without mentioning how much I spent for the fix, and I noticed the editor didn't offer to pay anything anyway. Maybe it didn't occur to her, but in hindsight, I guess I'm glad I didn't bother to ask, because the 4 of us (editor in chief, her #2 person, who does both payroll and stuff in the publiations dept., me and the other person who is also project editor like me) got into a rather frank conversation about the state of the publishing company.

It was the first time they'd had such a candid conversation with us. The building is for sale. There are 2 owners: 1 would like to see the company continue, in some form, while the other seems ready to retire. (They are both of retirement age now.) The building is huge, old, energy-inefficient and kind of falling apart.

The editor in chief said we know you guys are underpaid, well, guess what, so are we. And we don't know how long the company's going to last. She said she's mentioned several times that she'd be interested in continuing the business maybe under a new business model, where everyone was able to work at home f/t so they wouldn't need a brick and mortar location, or the expenses associated with it. She and the #2 person have been with this place for 20 years or so, and they both have a lot of accumulated know-how and knowledge.

They're working now on doing some modest upgrades to our ancient computers to enable us to work at home more than what we're doing now, but the owners don't have much to spend on it.

Right now, the publisher also still does writing workshops and conferences as well as the books we do, and it's only the books that are at least breaking even or making a modest profit. So that's good. But I am feeling this teensy little job, which nets me such a pitiful, but at the same time, essential amount of money, may also be in danger before too long.

It's hard to say. I am still looking for f/t of course, but it could still be some time before that happens. And this job, although it pays just $15/hr., (and which was something i considered beneath me when i first took it), is proving to be more and more essential to my everyday survival.

On the same day as we had that conversation, the other project editor confided in me that she was having difficulty fitting in the work at home when she was supposed to becus she's involved in a lot of work with her church and volunteer stuff and she gets sidetracked, plus she has kids. I privately thought to myself that, much as I like her, how great it would be if she resigned or something and I could convince the editor in chief that I could handle the additional work. I sort of doubt the other woman would give up the job entirely, but you never know.

My dad paid an unexpected visit up here. He stayed at my sister's and took the 3 of us out to dinner at the diner last night. I took home a roast pork, which I'll have for lunch or dinner tonight.

Then he came back this a.m. and helped me offload a small pile of brush at the landfill and at the same time load a small pile of mulch (yes, more mulch) into his pickup. I would have liked to take more, but I felt kinda bad having my father shovel mulch at his age. We dumped that in my driveway and then the 2 of us loaded another pile of cut firewood from my driveway into his truck, using a ramp and hand dolly which really saved our backs.

Now of his 4 children (2 sons, 2 daughters), I've been out of work the longest. My sister works, but she is just scraping by, and the older of my 2 brothers is the only one who seems to be doing pretty well. He works for a pharma company now, i think.

The younger of my 2 brothers (actually, they're both half-brothers), was an auto mechanic who worked in someone else's shop, and was let go. He also managed the repair shop and all the other mechanics and was pretty good at it.

He's been looking for a similar position without much luck for a few months now, and my dad said he's decided he might be better off trying to buy an existing repair facility and going into business for himself.

As my father pointed out, my brother's former boss charged something like $85 an hour for labor, while my brother was only making $25 an hour. He has all the skills needed to run his own place, but lacks the money to buy an existing business. So my father said he's thinking of helping my brother out by taking out a home equity line of credit, with the stipulation in his will that, should my dad pass away before the money is paid back, which is probably likely, that my bro would have to repay the money back to the estate so that everyone still gets one-quarter of my dad's assets, which my dad estimates would be $200K total. (In the same conversation, he said the bank where he applied for the Home equity line figured his house is worth about $330K now, so i guess my father forgot about the house when he said $200K? Hmmm)

i never had such a frank conversation with my dad before about this stuff. I told him it was very generous for him to do that and that I was sure my bro would be very excited, and that this could really launch him in his own business. I am not sure how it could be enforced that my brother repay all the money to the estate, but it's not for me to pass judgement on what my dad does with his money, anyway.

I have my first case of poison ivy for the season, with some on my arm and my ear, which is driving me crazy with the itchies.

I met a very nice woman about my age who was also a poll worker when i worked during my town's budget vote. We have connected on Facebook and she asked me to help her out with a fundraiser she's doing for wounded vets. Which I will do.

I also really hope I can work the next referendum vote since the budget was voted down. It was a modest increase, about 3.5%, but the board of education was trying to make a case for spending more money at a time when school enrollment is down and they are actually talking about mothballing 1 or more schools becus they dont need the space!!! All this at a time when many like me are still struggling and out of work or underemployed.

So I really want to work the next election too, cus i need the cash. I left a message to that effect at the registrar's office and asked them to call me back to confirm I could, but they never did, and each time i tried calling Friday, I got their machine. So I'll have to try again on Monday, or maybe I'll just walk in there.

I am just starting my 3rd month with Citi Thank You card and have only managed to charge about $800 of the $2,000 i need to spend to earn $250 in gift cards. The grocery gift cards are fine, but do i really want to purchase possilby $1,000 worth of grocery gift cards? That will really throw my month to month expenses out of whack.

Just to follow up on another post, I did some quick research on which brands offer BPA-free can linings, and which do not.

For the record, Muir Glen, Amy's and Whole Foods STILL USE BPA can linings. Trader Joe's only offers BPA-free for corn, beans and canned fish and poulty but BPA chili, soups and tomato products.

Hain Celestial, which owns Healthy Valley, Earth's Best and Wesrtbae, and ConAgra, which owns Hunts, helathy Choicdr and Heinz, have STARTED using BPA free cans for certain products, but not all.

Not me, my computer. Last week I was supposed to work my usual 2 days in the office, 1 day at home, but because they were having some computer issues there, they directed me and other editor to head home early and work from home the rest of the week.

Which was cool, until, later that afternoon, I was doing research on a particular website and i suddenly got bumped out of the site. Then I started getting mutiple error messages with dire warnings, like "Warning: Extremely unstable." Everything I tried to do only seemed to make things worse, and then I was directed me to a website hawking virus repair, so I finally gave up. The virus actually wiped out ALL of my Word documents, Excel, Powerpoint, and oh yes, even My Computer and Control Panel. And IE. The only thing left was my Firefox. All I could see was a big white space where those programs used to be when I hit Start/All programs. I can't tell you how scared I was, since the last time I backed up was 2 years ago. No excuses for that.

So I called a friend who recommended a local computer repair place and I got it down to him right before he closed on Wednesday. I got it back Friday afternoon and he saved all my files, although they are now in different places and I haven't had time to rearrange stuff. I also had to recreate all of my IE settings and favorites, but that was small potaotes compared to what might have been.

He charged me $80, which I considered a bargain, plus I paid another $40 for 2012 Norton Anti-Virus. Umm, no, I'd let an old version expire without renewal. He said having had anti-virus software installed wouldn't necessarily have prevented the virus from infecting my computer, and he also said there isn't a virus program out there worth more than $50, so don't pay more than that, ever.

Another place I'd called had quoted me a price of between $150 and $200. At least I was able to pay wtih my Citi Thank You card, which I'm still trying to charge up to meet my spending goal.

So the virus really threw off my whole schedule, and I'm only now feeling back to normal. Instead of doing my publishing job Wed/Thurs/Fri/and part of Saturday, I ended up working a bit on Friday but also part if Saturday and all day today.

I was feeling anxious to try and get it all done by tonight, because I need tomorrow to do a variety of things, including grocery shopping, because then on Tuesday I'll be a poll worker all day long and won't have time to do anything else, and then it's back to the publishing job on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I took a bit of a break and a friend of mine picked me up and we headed north to attend an artist's opening reception at a gallery/frame shop. The artist happened to be my mother, and I hadn't told her we were coming, so she was surprised, especially so since she hadn't seen my friend for a good many years. We stayed and chatted with her and the gallery owner for a while, which i guess was a good thing becus no one else showed up while we were there. And R. ended up buying one of my mother's pieces for his niece and let me charge it to my Citi card while giving me cash for it. And the gallery owner got a cut on the sale with a commission, so 3 of us benefitted from R.'s one act. Oh yeah, and his niece gets a present!

On the way home, we stopped for a few slices of pizza.

We're getting some much needed rain today, but it sure is dark and dreary, and a bit raw. Feels like March.

I made some banana walnut bread today. Watched an interesting movie last night, Across the Universe. If you love Beatles music, this one's for you. It's kind of like a rock musical with a movie plot.

Not really looking forward to Tuesday, but I'm doing it for the money. It's a long day, 5:15 am to 8 pm, and you can't leave the building but you're still responsible for your own meals, except breakfast. Some people have a spouse who will bring them their lunch or dinner, but I'll have to figure out something to bring that doesn't require cooking (no stove). Just a sandwich or something.

Luther has a penchant for prying open closed doors, anywhere in the house.

He started in the kitchen, finding the cabinet doors quite easy to pop open.



The first time I came home to a kitchen full of open cabinet doors, I thought someone had entered the house and helped themselves!

Now, I have to keep the cabinets above the refrigerator closed with a rubber band.



Cus if Luther got in there, he'd probalby knock down the CFL bulbs I have stored there. Not good, with the mercury they contain.

He's even figured out how to open this cabinet! (Sorry, out of focus.)



Along with this barnboard cabinet. Notice the latch on each is a little different.



And this is my darling Waldo, looking so peaceful and relaxed.

The gymnast.

Today was a pretty good day. I did start off the day with a wasted trip to Aldi's, just the second time I've been there since they opened last year. I was attracted by a cheapie outdoor plant hanger, which I never got becus the sales circular I saw it advertised in isn't good for another week. About 80% of aldi's is processed food in a box, jar or can, but I did pick up some cheap onions and sweet potatoes.

I went to browse Home Goods with my $25 gift card, wandering up and down every aisle. While they had the usual pretty dishware and glassware, I saw nothing that I felt I MUST have, and was surprised I might be leaving the store without buying anything. That is, until I saw something I really liked, a pagoda-like structure, vaguely Asian, that stands about two feet high. Not sure if it's meant for the outdoors, but that's how I'm using it, in one of my perennial beds near the blue milkweed and lamb's ears. I'll have a shot of it tomorrow. I really love it, and it was just $25. I'm embarrassed to say what I spent several years ago online for a much smaller pagoda elsewhere in my yard.

in other news...

I have a gazillion daffodils in my yard becus the deer don't like to eat them, and just a single red tulip. Where I got that bulb I don't know, but when I planted it, I figured it had the best shot at surviving if I planted it near my front door. True, the deer don't come quite that close, but chipmunks do, and most every year, that little tulip grows and grows, inching taller, getting ready to bloom and then CLOMP. I find it beheaded one day by the darn chipmunks that patrol my yard. In 17 years, I don't remember seeing it bloom.

Until 2012...







Saw another good movie tonight, The Savages. A grown brother and sister (she's from NYC, he lives in buffalo) are forced to spend time together when their elderly father ends up with dementia and they have to find a nursing home for him. It's not totally depressing, and it's really more about the relationship between the brother and sister. Very realistically done, I thought. They weren't close to their father, in fact, they hadn't seen him in years, and they each come to grips with their unhappy childhood in different ways. It's got its sweet spots.

I also managed to fill in two woodchuck hole with some sod I was digging up as I expand the vegetable garden. I hope and assume the burrows were vacant when I filled them; I guess I'll know tomorrow if the clumps of sod are moved. Although I must say as I stuffed the sod down the hole (don't worry, there is always an exit hole, too so I'm not burying anyone alive), I thought I smelled a faint whiff of...skunk. But no one came out, so I don't know. Like I said, I should have a better idea tomorrow when I inspect the holes.

So I continued work in the vegetable garden, planting another row of lettuce and working to dig up the sod. I also had to dig a ditch to put in a strip of flashing, about 6 inches wide, in an attempt to deter the many moles I have. They're really getting out of hand and are making a mess of my yard, but I don't think I want to use the usualy pellets or spray, which are usually made of castor bean oil, since it is poisonous. and I've read that if you miss a spot when you apply it, the moles will all huddle in the area that you missed, and I don't want that to be my veggie garden, which I can't spray. so I could make matters worse with that stuff. The other alternative is live traps (or not), and I think I'm moving closer to trying that, much as I'd rather not.

Anyway, I don't have enough flashing to put all aorund my veggie garden, and it's a lot of work diggintg the trench/ditch to fit in in the ground.

I had the soaker hose going for a bit watering everything and discovered that the reason why the 2 previous soaker hoses I had burst could be becus I used them during the heat of the day. Apparently, very hot water will damage the hose, which is made of recycled car tires. I don't know why it would be any different than a regular garden hose, except that it is porous and i guess a thinner material, which lets the water soak through, rather than spray into the area. This is the whole point of a soaker hose. Having water seep into the ground is better than getting leaves wet, which makes it easier for plant diseases to start and spread.

But anyway, the directions said don't run it with very hot water, which I can deal with if I remember to just use first thing in the a.m., but then it also said not to have water just sitting in there, becus i guess again, the sun will heat it up and possibly damage the hose. But for gosh sakes, most people use these in a veggie garden, which is going to be in the SUN, and it isn't at all convenient to have to pick up and drain the whole hose each time you use it. There's got to be a better way. I may call the company to discuss.

I thought this was an interesting story about paying property taxes with a rewards credit card. Can't say I thought about doing it, but it's interesting to read.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/block/story/2012-03-26/paying-taxes-credit-card-rewards/53791056/1?csp=34money&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomMoney-Block+%28Money+-+Block%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

I seem to be creeping along at a snail's pace as far as earning my way to $250 in giftcards from Citi Thank You card.

Checked my balance this morning and I've only spent $479, less than a week away from closing out Month 2 in my 3-month quest to spend $2,000.

Part of the problem was that I got off to a very slow start in Month 1, because I had already received this new card and was still spending on another card to wrap up rewards on that one. So I got this one a bit prematurely, and I only spent $45 on this one in Month 1.

The only regularly recurring bills that let me pay with a credit card at no charge are my car insurance, homeowners insurance and phone/Internet bills. And of course I charge all grocery and gas purchases.

I'm going to revisit some of my other utility expenses, even the mortgage, to see if I can pay usign a credit card. Even if I incur a service charge it would be worth it. There may have been one or two bills I initially avoided paying with the CC due to a service charge of some sort, but a dollar or two doesn't matter, given the reward I'm shooting for.

At least now i know i have a backup plan, grocery store gift cards, if I have to.

Tomorrow I will be hitting Aldi's for just the 2nd time since it opened in my state. It's a little out of the way, maybe 30 minutes. I will also hit Home Goods to see if I want to use a $25 gift card I got from MyView.

Now MyView is the only one of about 5 different survey companies I do surveys for that offers gift cards only. I prefer cash becus it helps with living expenses. This is the 2nd gift card I've gotten from them and both times, I never got the card in their 4 to 6 week timeframe, and I had to get after them with emails and it was an all round pain in the neck. It took almost 8 weeks to get the card and i don't think i want to bother having to hound them for it. You're completely at their mercy. I have one more Home Goods gift card due in a few weeks and I'm quite sure I'll have to go through the same process, although I asked the customer service rep was it too much to ask to get BOTH gift cards at the same time, even though I redeemed them separately. Apparently, yes, too much to ask.

Thus far in 2012, I've earned $115 in gift cards, for either Home Goods ($50) or Amazon. Earned thru participation in either MyView surveys or a Communispace credit card forum.

I must admit that gift cards are a LOT more fun to spend and use, but really, I prefer cash, becus it goes right in my checking account to pay bills. Boring, but essential.

I currently also have $30 in amazon gift cards to spend, and this time I'm trying not to rush as I think I could do better than get $25 worth of black licorice, which is what i did last time. I have after MUCH browsing, decided on 2 books but there's a little left over and I'm trying to avoid or minimize shipping charges.

The books are:
1. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, true story (on the best seller list) written by a woman who lost her mother and goes on a long hike to come to grips with it, and

2. Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health

So tomorrow it's Aldi's and Home Goods and Tuesday I have brief training session for poll worker stuff on April 24, a bank deposit and getting more mulch.

Today, I'm not going anywhere. My only goals are:
1. one load of laundry
2. plant lettuce
3. pick up the house or other yardwork, if i'm up to it.

I saw another really good movie last night, Snow Angels.

When I see a movie I really like, I go online AFTER I've seen it to read what others have said about it, and I was surprised with this one that comments went to one extreme or another: either the reviewer loved it, or they hated it.

I picked this one up in a rush at the library, at a time when I knew I wanted another week's worth of movies to watch, but didn't have time to linger. I think the library was closing soon or something. So anyway, I just looked at the cover of this one and decided to get it. The cover has a picture of a pretty woman and another image of a man standing over and behind a kneeling woman. There was no way of knowing what the movie was really about, so all the twists and turns of the plot really took me by surprise and probably added to my enjoyment. It's a little dark, but if you don't mind that, definitely worth watching.

It's been 2 weeks since I interviewed for the news reporter job and haven't heard anything. I'm disappointed. Guess I didn't get it. Never head back from recruiter about United Health Care job and haven't heard back from client about more legal editing, which I thought I'd have this weekend. Also haven't heard a peep from real estate client.

So I need a break. It usually happens, just when there's absolutely nothing on the horizon, something pops up and I'm back in business.

Universe, I'm ready. Lay it on me.

I was irked to see my AT&T phone/Internet bill today for $50. It went up by $5, and I never make long distance calls on it.

But it went up last month as well, and when it did, I spoke to customer service and she found a $5 promotion which she applied to the bill and said it was good for a year, so my bill was to go back down to $45 a month ($21 for the land line and $25 for the Internet).

That $21 a month for the phone does NOT include long distance, but it's been no biggie becus I've been in the habit of buying prepaid phone cards at about .03 a minute, and I figured it was cheaper to pay that only when I make long distance calls, rather than paying a fixed monthly fee when I really don't make a lot of long distance calls.

So when the bill went up to $50 again this month, I called to complain and she said oh, the person you spoke to last month probably didn't see that you're already getting a $5 loyal customer discount and you can't tack on more than one.

Then she told me about their Emergency use only plan, which is just $7.45 a month (compared to the $21 I'm paying now for the phone portion of the bill). With this plan, all incoming calls are free, as are local calls out, but any long distance calls I make are .41 a minute, which happens to be the rate I would otherwise be paying under my existing plan except that I use those calling cards with a toll free number.

So, not sure if this was the right move, but I went for the Emergency use only plan. I don't have a cell phone, so i might be restricting myself too much, but i really liked the idea of reducing a monthly bill by over $13 a month.

I specifically asked about the calling cards i use with the toll-free numbers, becus i rely on these to make any long distance call. She said with the toll free number they'd be charged at .03 a minute.

So yeah, it would be on top of the roughly .03 a minute i alreaday pay for the calling cards themselves, but i still think paying .06 a minute per call will wind up being cheaper than a flat monthly fee that's assessed whether i use the phone or not.

Put another way, i could make up to 450 minutes of long distance calls a month (7.5 hours x .03/minute = $13.50, using my calling cards) and still pay no more than i'm paying now, and probably less. I find it hard to believe I would spend that much time on long distance calls.

If I didn't have the calling cards to use for long distance calls it wouldn't make sense, so if that customer service rep was wrong about toll-free numbers being billed at .03 and i actually got charged at the .41 a minute rate, then I'd have to switch back. She said long distance is anything where you have to dial a 1 before the number. But you have to dial 1 before a toll-free number, but maybe that's different.

What do you think?

I recently had a "lightbulb" moment when I realized that I COULD get the Chase Sapphire rewards card and not have to wait til I was employed full-time to be able to spend $3,000 in 3 months.

There are 2 reasons for this:

1. As someone pointed out here, if I find I'm running short of the target spending goal, i can always buy grocery store gift cards.

2. I took a look at last year's monthly expense sheets (you never know when these come in handy) and I could see that I usually pay my car insurance (1/2 of it) in July and my homeowners in October.

So if I time my application for the Chase Sapphire card in mid-July, I should be able to cover both big bills, which together come to just under $1,000. So that would be one-third of the target spend right there.

Right now, I need to focus on my current Citi thank You preferred spend, and again, I just might need those grocery store gift cards to hit the target.

If I do just the citi thnak you card and the sapphire card, I will have exceeded my target of $1,000 in cash and gift cards earned from credit card rewards in 2012.

Cool.

Can someone please get rid of this junk?

So I'm currently working to charge up $2,000 in 3 months on my citi Thank You card.

This is sort of a dumb question, but I've never done this before and I'm thinking maybe I could do this as I'm concerned I might not be able to spend the $2,000, as most of my utilities, for example, don't accept credit card payments....is there some reason I can't pay for one credit card bill by using another credit card to pay for it?

I usually pay all my credit cards with a personal check.

Well, since we all seem to have credit cards on the brain, I thought I would tally up my 2012 credit card rewards thus far in 2012.

February: Discover Card, $150 cash
March: Citi Dividend VIsa, $200 cash
Anticipated in May: Citi Thank You, $500 in gift cards

Total so far: $350
Total in 2011: $425

2012 Goal: $1,000

The cash I've earned so far has just gone toward paying my general living expenses. If I were working, it would be nice to treat it as fun money, but alas, that's not in the cards right now. It's more like survival money.

Today's my last free day before returning to p/t job tomorrow. So the only thing on my agenda is to collect another carful of free mulch at the landfill and spread it on the perennial bed running alonside my driveway.

I also want to call a contact who recruits people for focus groups for a certain company, to see if there are any going on.

Yesterday I spent several hours working in the veggie garden. There were already a lot of weeds growing in it and I needed to plant 6 baby broccoli seedlings my sister gave me on Easter. Last year, my broccoli was deccimated by worms making pinholes all over the leaves. A flying insect lays its eggs on the underside of the leaves and they feed from there.

So after reading about using tulle netting, the kind used for a bridal veil, as a cover for things like broccoli (it prevents the insect from laying its eggs on the plant), I priced it out and using a coupon was able to get 5 yards of white tulle for about $7. If it helps me get a bumper crop of broccoli this year, it will be worth it. It was a challenge to set it all up since I needed poles to hold the netting aloft over the seedlings and I didn't want to spend more money on poles, so i just made do with what i have and weighed down the tulle on all sides with small rocks.

It looks like a floppy eyesore in my garden, quite frankly, and my neighbors are probably wondering what the heck it is, but again, if it does what it's supposed to do, I don't care.

So I got the broccoli in, and also wrapped the base of each stem in tinfoil to prevent cutworms from mowing them down at the stalk. (You learn these things the hard way.) And I also planted pea pods, then hauled my very long hose down about 75 feet to the garden and gave everything a good watering. It's been very dry around here.

Today, it would be nice to get the lettuce in.

On my trip to get the tulle yesterday, I also stopped at Petco for a free can of Science Diet cat food, picked up some groceries on sale at Shop Rite and got another week's worth of DVDs at the library.

On the job front:
There's NOTHING going on right now, either freelance or otherwise. Waiting to hear on the news reporter job. Waiting on the legal editing work. So 2 things pending, but that's it.

I asked a friend of mine with a camcorder if he would be willing to tape me in a mock interview and play the part of a prospective employer. I'd like to watch the tape and try to pinpoint weaknesses.

I'd had a lot of interviews, maybe 1 a month or 1 every other month, but no offers. I know it's partly due to the sheer number of others in the same boat, but I also think I could greatly improve my interviewing skills. It seems I'm too easily thrown by chance factors out of my control, like, I don't feel a 'connection' with the person who's interviewing me, or I get an unexpected question, or like, at my last interview at the commercial real estate appraisal company, the guy interviewing me was so damn attractive and suave, it made me nervous!

I think I should be good enough at interviewing that I AM in control of the interview process and do a good job regardless of the other person's personality or other superficial things.

My unemployment runs out June 19.

If you need to make a quickie dessert for Easter, here's a delicious and easy one. I've posted it before, but it bears repeating:

Dark, milk or white chocolate chips: Melt it in a microwave safe bowl. I think I use 1 cup.

Mix 1/2 cup dried cranberries and 1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts into the chocolate mix. Take spoonfuls to cool on a sheet of wax paper or something and stick in fridge for 10 minutes til cooled.

That's it. They're delicious!

It's been an uneventful Saturday. I finished up my part-time work for the publisher's here at home today. I work in the office 8 hours wednesday, 8 hours thursday and then i usually split my 9 remaining hours at home on friday and saturday.

Did some yardwork during the warmest part of the afternoon, spreading the rest of my mulch on various perennial beds. My summer could revolve around mulch, its acquisition and distribution. Ha!

Lazed in the sun room with the kitties, chasing a squirrel off the bird feeder and admiring my mulch. I even hung the hummingbird feeder becus I noticed in my bird journal that one year I spotted a hummingbird as early as April 26, and since they always return to the same area as the previous year, I wouldn't want "mine" to go hungry should they catch an early flight north.

A friend of mine, a Republican, really annoyed me by sending me a chain email attacking Jane Fonda ("never forget") for her anti-war efforts during the Vietnam War. I mean, perfect timing! Crucify the woman on the eve of Easter for something that happened 40 years ago. Has he never done anything he regretted during his youth? She apologized. Get over it.

The Author asked me to write a reviewer blurb for the back of her book, so I wrote that today as well. She sort of hinted that I could use whatever title I wanted, but I don't feel right saying anything than what I am, so it's "Patient Saver, Project Editor, The xxx (name of publisher). Although Project Editor is a fairly junior level title, compared to Managing Editor, Editor in Chief or even Senior Editor, the name of my publisher does have a little cache, I think, since their name does not really sound like a publisher. It has "Institute" in it. In addition to offering books to help wannabe writers (2 of which I'm updating) they also put on those old-fashioned correspondent type courses thru the mail where you are assigned an editor and do various writing assignments. They do some workshops, too, I think.

I touched base with the social worker about the next 2 legal editing assignments; won't get the one til end of next week.

My main client, the real estate company, has been extremely quiet since mid-February. Haven't heard a peep out of them.

I heard from a recruiter Friday about a contract job with United Health Care for about 8 months. I'm sorry I couldn't muster up more enthusiasm over the phone, but I applied for a job with them a few months back, also thru a recruiter, and I think they withdrew that job or something. But she's presenting me to the company. They want someone with a healthcare background, which I don't have, but you never know. I did a long time ago work for what is known today as the National Insurance Crime Bureau (a very interesting job, but company relocated to Chicago area). Our thing there was combatting insurance fraud like staged car accidents, slip and falls, arson, workers comp cases, etc.

Not a whole lot else new. I enjoy watching everything coming to life again, little green leaves forming on trees, daffodils and hyacinth in bloom, my cherry trees already bloomed and faded.

Tomorrow is dinner at my mother's. I'll make that dessert mentioned above.

Happy Easter!

There are certain markets out there that are fiercely competitive, and consumers stand to benefit if they recognize this.

A few examples are phone and cable service. Another is electricity, at least here in Connecticut where the industry was deregulated a number of years ago in an effort to lower electricity costs to consumers.

Just a few months ago, on New Year's Eve, as a matter of fact, i devoted some time to studying various electrical providers and their rates on the state of CT website. I picked the cheapest rate, at that time, 7.98 per kilowatt hour offered by Dominion Energy. At the time, it was a cost savings to me as I had switched a year prior to Public Power at .099 per kh.

So I signed up, figured I had a good deal (it was a fixed priced locked in for 1 year) and promptly forgot about it.

That was just 3 months ago, and then yesterday my mother alerted me to the fact that another provider, North American Power (NAP), was offering electricity at 6.49 per kh.

Back to the state website I went, and I saw that NAP was offering various unspecified promotional deals, but their standard rate was much higher.

So I went to the NAP website and read the Terms of Service, which said that promo rate was only good for 3 months and then the rate would go variable.

So i advised my mom not to go with them; however, while on the state website, i saw that Dominion, the company that now provides my power at 7.98 pher kh, was offering electricity at 6.98, good for 1 year.

I called them this morning at around 7 am and was surprised someone answered the phone. I was prepared to be disgruntled and to end up switching to another provider, but when i said i was a current customer and saw their lower rate on the state website, he said i could "re-enroll" in the new program, no problem. Which is what i did.

Now the difference in my total monthly charge for electricity generation between my old rate and the new one is just $2 and change, but I figure, electricity is electricity. The product is identical, regardless of where you get it, so why pay a PENNY more than you need to? A lot of people go running around and waste gas to save a few bucks at one store or another; i figure it's surely worth the effort when i can achieve the savings in 2 minutes on my computer.

I am sure that electric providers count on the fact that most people, once they switch, tend to forget about it and move on with other things, so lesson learned here was, if you snooze, you lose. If I hadn't bothered to check the state website for current rate offerings, i'd never know I could get electricty more cheaply than I am now, even when the cheaper rate is offered by the same company I'm now getting my power from!

Shop rite had a deal going this past month where, if you spent $300 in 4 weeks, you could have your choice of a frozen whole turkey, frozen turkey breast, lasagna or tofu turkey.

Last week my spending was only up to $210, but today after my latest job interview I went armed with a calculator and managed to spend $93, just enough to earn my frozen turkey breast. It's nearly 7 lbs and usually goes for $12, so I was pleased.

I don't usually spend that much in a month, but i purchased double on a lot of things and didn't have to much trouble.

The interview went fine, but the guy i met with was really just a gatekeeper to screen people and if the newsroom people like what he has to say about me, they'll call me in for a 2nd interview.

I intended to tell the guy i was really mainly interested in the p/t copy editing, not the news reporting jobs, but when i inquired about the former, he said that would just go along with the f/t reporting job, to make sure it's full-time. It is a job with benefits though. I had assumed it would pay too low for me to consider, even without a mortgage, but when he told me that, i decided to just keep my mouth shut and keep my options open for as long as possible.

I really would be extremely surprised if the job paid any more than $35k tops, but to get benefits and heatlh insurance i might be tempted to take it anyway.
He wasn't asking any tough questions, so it made it easy for me to just play along.

I made a 4th trip for mulch this morning. Tomorrow it's back to work. Notice my mortgage balance. I'm getting excited about its shrinking size.

I had another outside-the-box thought today.

I signed up to be a poll worker again in my town's April election. I should have signed up to work the presidential primary, which also takes place in April, but when she mentioned that on the phone, I was thinking November and figured I had time. So I'll call her back tomorrow to sign up for the 2nd as well.

But then I got to thinking....what's to prevent me from being a poll worker in neighboring towns as well? They all seem to have their town budget votes at different times.

I called one town's registrar and she said that while there used to be a law that you had to live in the town where you worked, they did away with that law. But their vote is tomorrow and they have all the poll workers they need.

I called a local small city but they they have a different form of govt and don't have a spring election.

Then I figured I might as well wait til tomorrow before I call anywhere else becus I don't actually know the date of my hometown's budget vote. I don't think they've set a date yet, but of course I want to make sure the dates don't conflict.

The other day I saw an interesting job posted for a writer/biographer to work for a personal injury law firm interviewing clients and writing a narrative that would be used in court by the law firm. While the job was just too far away for me to consider (an hour, plus driving as far north as Albany to visit with the victims), I did write the law firm to see if this was something law firms typically have a need for, becus I figure I'd be very good at it, and I'm already editing reports for the social worker/guardian ad litem in Massachusetts who is doing the same kind of work, except that she's interviewing various parties involved in child custoy cases. But by editing her reports, I've been able to see what kinds of questions she asks and how she writes them up, etc.

Someone from the law firm did respond back to me and briefly said he thought what they did was very unique but you never know. He declined to share their payscale with me.

So I did also shoot off letters to 4 or 5 big law firms in my area, basically proposing the same thing as this one ad. I emphasized my qualifications and well, you never know. I'd be interested to get any feedback at all, but I don't know if they'd bother.

I went for my 3rd mulch pick up at the landfill the other day. I found a recent load of very clean, very new chips. Looks like hemlock. It's a very light colored wood and really stands out in my beds but I need so much more!

Here's where I've been digging:



I want to get some more tomorrow morning....nobody take my mulch!

Oh, and if you're interested, here's where I work, the p/t publisher's job:


It's a very bucolic setting. I work in the left wing and my window looks out on the left. It used to be a boys boarding school and also an arts colony at one time. Originally was a private home.

I've gotten kind of hooked on watching this webcast:
check it out during the daytime and you'll see the male and female changing guard over the eggs they're sitting on, and you'll see either bird swoop in with large twigs and branches and then they rearrange the nest. It's really amazing. here's the link:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2433

Just leave this window open with speakers ON and you can catch some amazing stuff.

I made some honey-glazed muffins today with walnuts. They're just ok. My orange/bran muffins are much better, I think.

I got my 5 lbs. of black Scotties' licorice delivered and have gotten kind of stuck on them. Probably not great for the teeth, so I sort of suck on them like hard candy rather than chew.

Tomorrow's my interview at the newspaper. I've sort of decided already that what I'd be interested is whatever copy editing they have, but not the reporter jobs. You do a lot of running around as a news reporter, and a lot of it is at night for meetings or on weekends, when you might like to have the time to yourself. I did it when I was younger; not sure I have the stamina to do it now. It'll be my job to convince them I'm perfect for the copy editing job.

What a strange mix of emotions at feeling both impoverished (given my underemployment and general lack of here-and-now money) and wealthy. My net worth bumped up by $6,000 in March, bringing up the value of my total investments excluding the house to $500,033.

Compare that to:

March 31, 2011: $512,337
March 31, 2010: $468,696
March 31, 2009: $352,753

Yeah, my assets incrreased by over $100,000 from 2009 to 2010, but they increased less from 2010 to 2011, and that's because I didn't contribute a nickel to a 401k plan since my layoff.

I just need a job now and all my worries will be gone!!

Universe! Do you hear me?

I've lined up yet another job interview for this Tuesday with the publisher of a local weekly newspaper covering about 10 towns in my area.

It would definitely be getting back to my roots, because newspaper reporting is what I did for the first three years after I graduated college. But it was very low paying, even then, so I later went on to law school and better paying jobs in marketing.

However, I look back fondly on my newspaper days. I met a lot of people and knew a lot about what was going on in the towns I was covering. These were local papers, not those with a national audience, so I wrote a lot of special interest features and attended lots of late night planning and zoning meetings, always toting a camera.

It was a difficult job at times for me to do because I'm your basic introvert and sometimes dislike having to go up and talk to strangers about not always so pleasant topics, like, so, you're getting sued, how do you feel about that?

Well, I exaggerate a little, but you get the idea.

The job also often entailed late night meetings with early morning deadlines and lots of running around on the weekends to various events. For a single 20-something, it was ok, but doing that now full-time? I'm not sure.

So I saw the ad in a paper here and it actually said you could call about the job. So I applied on Friday and decided to call today to follow up. I got patched right through to the publisher and had a brief conversation with him. It's a family-owned newspaper and they actually have two openings: one for a full-time reporter covering one town with blue-collar roots, and another for a part-time reporter (who can work up to 40 hours) covering a different town that's more upscale and is known as an antiques town, has various horse farms, etc. I presume the f/t job has benefits.

Both towns would be a good half-hour drive, although the newspaper office is about 15 minutes away.

I expect the pay for etiher will be EXTREMELY low, quite possibly too low for me to consider f/t, but it could possibly make sense to take the p/t one to supplement my current p/t job and freelance.

So sometime this weekend I will once again assemble a portfolio, this time dragging out old newspaper clips that I'd otherwise be embarrassed to ever show, but which I feel would be important to include just to prove I did in fact work at two other newspapers. Both newspapers have since gone under.

I'm not necessarily expecting much becus it probably won't pay enough to even be worthwhile, but it's worth exploring and these days, I'm leaving no stone unturned. I consider it an "exploratory" interview.

March turned out to be a great money month for me.

Freelance: $1,190
My p/t job: $1325
Unemployment: $503
Credit card rewards: $200
Online surveys: $127
3 rebates: $$34
Product research $30
Total: $3,491

That freelance work was all done all at once in February. It's mostly my one real estate client, with a little bit from my new legal client and also a little from editing the emails of the IT director.

The bad news is, I have no billables outstanding now. That's the problem: the freelance work comes in spurts. The $127 in online surveys is what I'd like to see myself make every month, but sometimes it's as little as $50. I'm so tired of waiting over 6 weeks to get a $25 gift card in the mail. It takes forever, and they often ignore your emails asking where it is. I will be so happy to throw in the towel on those things some day.

I had no major calamities this month expense-wise, and right now, my total March expenses come to $2,094, so my net will be positive $1397 or so. It also helped that March was the second consecutive month where I paid $0 for electricity, part of the deal the state worked out with CL& P for botching up storm recovery of power, twice.

Tomorrow's my work at home day, and in the afternoon, I'll quit early to run down to do another product study. I can wrap up my work on Saturday. On the way home, I'll get another load of free wood chips at the landfill, do a bank deposit of all those checks I got and stop at a good will store to pick up some cheap glass vases so i can play paint a vase as noted in an earlier post. Also want to stop at Staples to get some free-after-rebate batteries, which I mostly use in my digital camera and a few clocks.

I want to buy a $35 water fountain for the cats. It recycles the water and makes it a bit more appetizing to drink than stale water in a bowl. I've had a bit of a scare with Waldo; I thought he might have cystitis after I found he left 2 drops of urine on the bed on 2 separate occasions. He wasn't running to the litterbox and seems fine, but I gave him some apple cider vinegar mixed in tuna juice last night, which he really seemed to like. I tried to give him more again today and tonight when I got home from work, just 1/2 t. mixed in tuna juice and then in his food, and he turned up his nose. I'm going to get tinned sardines at Stop and Shop tomorrow on the way home from the product study to further try to camouflage the apple cider vinegar. But it's going to have to wait a few weeks cus I already blew $27 on black licorice last week (hmmm) and I'll have to wait to save up more Amazon gift certificates.

I had a thought recently that might be an option in supplementing my retirement income or simply creating an income stream to help me get by. Now, later or down the road.

I won't likely act on it right away, but it bears consideration and is maybe something I would do in eight years or so.

I'm thinking "creatively."

Now I'm sure most of you are familiar with the way a reverse mortgage works. You sign over your house to a lender and in return you get lifetime possession and a monthly stream of income that gradually sucks the equity out of your home. Your heirs get nothing.

Now while I probably wouldn't consider a reverse mortgage because of their very high fees, I thought of something recently that seems to work very similarly to a reverse mortgage.

Is anyone familiar with a charitable remainder trust, aka charitable gift annuity?

I know a teensy bit about CRTs because I used to write sales literature for them way back when for a previous employer. But that was a long time ago and I'm sure the product has evolved.

As I understand, you make a gift to a charity in the form of cash, securities or real estate. My gift would be my house. In return, you get an annuitized income stream for life, a tax deduction (not sure based on what) and of course when you die, your heirs get nothing, because the asset no longer belongs to you.

I'm fine with that. I have already named a number of charitable groups as my beneficiaries in my mutual fund investments. In my will, I have named my parents and my 3 siblings. But as you may know, should the named beneficiaries in your will and investments conflict, your investment beneficiaries take precedence. So in my case, should I die, my family would actually get nothing except my house and material possessions. And I'm thinking of changing that by possibly using a charitable gift annuity as described above.

While I would want to leave $$ to my parents, I think it's safe to assume I'll outlive them. And my father doesn't really need the money. If I willed it to him, he'd probably just save it and then when he died, the money would wind up going to my two half-brothers.

We didn't grow up together and aren't really close at all, although my one brother did recently just have a daughter. Still, he doesn't seem to need the money either and I don't have a special desire to leave either of them money so they can buy some new living room furniture or take a really cool vacation somewhere. I want my money, which I worked so hard for, to do something purposeful and meaningful.

I have been a lifelong environmentalist and would very much like to see my assets benefit certain groups that are trying to preserve our open space, protect wildlife habitat and so on. So the idea of a charitable remainder trust really appeals to me. Even more so because my house represents a huge portion of my net worth that is illiquid and would otherwise not be accessible to me and would really only benefit me by serving as a place for me to live.

The kind of trust described above would enable me to draw some benefit from an illiquid asset and achieve some good at the same time.

Of course, I would have to think very, very carefully about doing this, becus forming such a trust is an irrevocable act, meaning, that once you decide to do it, you CANNOT undo it down the road if you change your mind.

I suppose if all I was after was some extra ongoing income, I could simply sell my house when the market recovered, buy a little condo and then enjoy the extra profit I'd make from the sale of the home. Which i might still do.

I happened to get my Nature Conservancy magazine in today's mail, and according to their little chart, if you donated $10,000 to them at age 60, you'd get a $440 annual payment and a $2,231 tax deduction. My house today is worth about $290K, so my annual payment, should I give them my house, would be in the neighborhood of $13,200, or $1100 a month, at least the way I interpret their chart.

What do you think? Am I overlooking something big here? Cus this sounds pretty good. Dido, MM? What say you?

OK, so I'm just gonna toss this idea and see what kind of feedback I get about it.

It's just another way of thinking about retirement income, or establishing a stream of income for myself now or later. I probably won't be rushing out to do it today, but it's something to think about, maybe, down the road.

Who out there is familiar with charitable remainder trusts or charitable gift annuities?

Here's what I'm thinking:

First, you should know I really have no heirs. Neither my sister nor I have children. I have two half-brothers, about 10 years younger than my sister and I, but we never see each other and we're not really a part of each others' lives, although my one brother did recently have a child. But they're not lacking for money. He does pretty well.

So I've already named a smattering of charitable groups as beneficiaries in my various mutual fund investments. As you may know, should you die, whom you name as beneficiaries in your investments supersedes whoever you may name as beneficiary in your will, should they conflict.

Right now my will does name my parents and three siblings as beneficiaries, but because my investments name various charitable groups, the only thing my family would get is my home and material possessions. And I'm thinking of changing that.

I think it's safe to guess I'll outlive my parents. I would want to leave assets to them both, but I think I'll be around longer than they will. (My mother could really use some help, but my father doesn't need my money and so if I did leave him money and then he passed, my assets would end up with my two brothers with whom, like I said, I don't have much of a relationship with.

So I'm thinking I might like to do something different with my house. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the way a reverse mortgage works. You get lifetime possession and when you die, the house goes to the bank. You also get a stream of income, which gradually sucks the equity out of your home. Your heirs don't get anything.

While I'm not especially enamored of reverse mortgages, due to their very high fees, I am thinking about something that seems to work very similarly to them, namely a charitable remainder trust or charitable gift annuity.

I know a teensy bit about charitable remainder trusts because I used to write sales literature for a CRT that my employer offered way back when, over 10 years ago now.

I don't know enough, but I'm thinking I could give my house to the Nature Conservancy and retain lifetime possession. When I die, they get the house. I'm fine with that. (They would of course sell the house and use the proceeds toward some good.) While I'm alive, I get an annuitized stream of income and tax benefits in the form of a deduction. (Not sure what kind of deduction nor how much.)

It appeals to me because I like the idea of leaving my assets to the Nature Conservancy (and some other groups). I like the idea of getting my home, an illiquid asset, to generate an income stream to supplement my retirement. Look at it this way: the house would otherwise represent a huge portion of my net worth that's all locked up and inaccessible to me and really would just serve as a place for me to live. Why not put it to work for me instead and do some good with it at the same time?

Of course, I'd have to think very, very carefully about doing this, because a CRT is irrevocable, meaning that once you decide to do it, you CANNOT undo it. So I'd have to make damn sure that I didn't want to move to a nice little maintenance-free condo somewhere and that I was committed to aging in place.

I happened to get my Nature Conservancy magazine in the mail today and according to their little chart, a $10,000 gift to them at age 60 would generate $440 annually and a $2,231 tax deduction. My home is worth about $290K now, so if I gifted my home, the annual income should be about $13,200 annually, or $1100 a month, if i figured that right.

I'm not at all sure I have that mindset now, hence my certainty that I'm not going to do anything right away. I suppose if all I was looking for was a little extra retirement income, I could simply sell this house when the market recovers, buy a little condo and free up some substantial cash from the sale of the house in the process.

Just thinking outside the box.

Dido, MM, what do you think? Am I overlooking something big, because all this sounds pretty good to me.

I called the landfill this morning and asked if they had plans for the huge mountain of mulch growing there. We had a ton of tree damage from freak storms this fall and winter. They said no, you can't take from that pile, it belongs to someone else, but you can help yourself to some mulch down by the (adjacent) dog pound.

Hmp. I had never noticed another pile of much by the dog pound. Wasn't sure how much of it I would find.

So I filled my car with all the buckets I could collect from the garage, plus my recycling bin. At the landfill, there was indeed one very long and high pile of mulch, pretty clean looking, so i got to work with my shovel. When I got home, I wasn't feeling particularly energetic, but I decided to just transfer it all to my wheelbarrow and the next thing you know I'm applying the mulch, along with some newspaper underneath to two of my perennial beds. I saw that I was able to bring home two-and-a-half full wheelbarrows in one trip.

I made a second trip as well and figure I can keep returning as I move along to each bed, weeding as I go. I also used more newspaper underneath it, which I think will make this mulch even more effective.



Another view:


A creamy white variety:


And here are some with an orangey center:


Yes, I like daffodils!

Here is the really cool thing I did with an idea in Country Living magazine.



At left is what these containers looked like before: just ordinary clear glass vases, for the most part. I took some latex paint (it was free to me and picked it up just a few months ago via Craig's List) and you pour some paint INSIDE the container and swirl it around the inside only. Pour out and let drip any excess, then let dry. It's that easy. Only thing is, you can no longer use these as water-filled vases, as the water will make the paint come up. but you can use dried flowers.

I happen to LOVE LOVE LOVE this color. It's pretty close to my all-time favorite color. It reminds of me of the color of the sea. I could see my bedroom painted this color.

Anyway, back to the mulch.

I'm so tickled (!) that I was able to get this for FREE. I spent a lot of time the last few weeks trying to figure out how to get some at minimal cost, because I simply can't justify any discretionary expense these days.

Agway had a good deal on you-pick-up mulch at $40 a yard. (For several years, I had a yard of mulch delivered to my driveway at about $100 each time. What a ripoff!!!! Never a again!) The Agway deal was good, but I don't have a truck. I thought of getting my father to come up and go with me, but even though they dump it in the truck for you, you have to shovel it out yourself, and I don't want to put my father to work anymore.

I did also place myself on a waiting list with a local tree cutting place (another great idea, I thought) although it remains to be seen how long I might wait for it. I would probably still take some if they ever do call with a load, mainly becus it's delivered. I can get mulch now at the landfill, but it's a fair amount of work to shovel it into my teensy containers and then unload it when I get home.

However, my goal was to 1. Get mulch and 2. Do so at minimal cost. And I did achieve both objectives. Cus while cash is something I'm pretty short on these days, I have plenty of 1. Time and 2. Elbow grease.

I loved the whole process of creative thinking, outside the box, to get something I really needed without spending money. and you guys helped me do it.

I made my own pizza for lunch today. Boboli's pizza crust was on 1/2 price sale, so I got the whole wheat. I like their crusts, but they're ridiculously expensive...over $4, normally. That's more than an entire loaf of bread, for gosh sakes! I used an ENTIRE head of garlic, sauteed with mushrooms and onions, and piled that on top of sauce, then added
crumbled feta cheese. Yum.

Now I am kind of pooped and will hang out inside for the rest of the day.

This a.m. I was able to register to work for the 2nd year in my town's referendum as a poll worker, usually held in late April. It's a very long workday, from about 5 am to 8 pm, but I did paid $175 for it.

I am in the countdown phase of my dwindling unemployment benefits and am uber-concerned about making ends meet once that's gone.

My immediate goal has been to prolong unemployment benefits for as long as possible (by doing more freelance work, which reduces your unemployment benefit proportionately) so that I would have a lower mortgage balance left when I run out of benefits.

My strategy will be to then cash out my one remaining taxable mutual fund (see my balances in my sidebar) to pay off whatever the mortgage balance is at the time I run out of unemployment benefits. I figure at that point, it doesn't make sense to keep paying 6% interest on my mortgage when I can just pay it of with savings. But I don't want to do the big lump sum payoff if I don't have to because the fund I would use to pay it off (the only taxable fund I have left) happens to be an international stock fund, which has lost a lot of money over the whole European banking crisis thing.

So...I checked my "balance" with the Dept. of Labor and my remaining benefits stand at $3,245. I calculated that the three days a week I work at my part-time job represents 60% of the maximum weekly benefit, so I'm able to figure out that I have roughly 10.6 weeks of unemployment benefits I can count on, assuming I don't have any more freelance income.

I have about $750 of freelance income pending in the form of already-billed work, and it's unlikely I'd do NO freelance work in April, May or June. So I figure the $750 is good for prolonging unemployment benefits for two more weeks, which takes me to 3rd week of June, and I should be able to do SOME additional freelance work in 2nd quarter, so I think, conservatively, I should be able to make it to July 1 without running out of unemployment. (I originally forecast I'd run out in March/April so I'm thrilled with this.)

So what does this mean, exactly? It means that I know I have at least 4 more mortgage payments I can make (March thru June), which means my mortgage balance should be down to $5,000 or less when I'm cut off from unemployment benefits.

If ONLY I could string this out a FEW more months, it might not be necessary at all to dig into personal savings to pay off my mortgage.

That would be great, because that $72,000 I have left in my one taxable account is what I may be living on, supplemented by part-time work and freelance, for a while.

I mean, I remember Dido said she had 5 interviews in the past month. I stopped keeping track of interviews I've had becus it's too depressing to think about.

Of course, my $6500 annual property taxes aren't going away, and I can expect my COBRA to increase this June from the $468/month I'm currently paying, so it WON'T be a cakewalk. But once the mortgage is gone, it will mean that's $700 a month less I have to worry about paying., and my bare minimum monthly expenses will fall from the current $2,374 to about $1,800. My monthly net from my part-time job is $1,438, so after the mortgage is gone, that would leave just $400 I'd have to come up with monthly through freelance writing to meet bare minimum expenses.

Of course, come June 2013, the cards get shuffled again, because that's when my ability to buy COBRA insurance disappears. Without a job, bumped from COBRA and with a pre-existing condition, it could be difficult to get health insurance. I'm not sure I want to take the risk of going 6 months with no insurance so that I would then be eligible for the state's pool of i don't know what they call it, but it's an affordable plan but you have to go 6 months with no insurance. Anyway, if i get a f/t job with benefits before June 2013, it won't be a problem, but I'm 52 now and wondering if my older age is not helping in the job search.

Also, as a homeowner, I know that any one of dozens of things could go at any time. The water heater, the furnace, who knows what. So I'd like to somehow build up my reserves to cover myself in such an event without having to sell off mutual funds.

I guess that's why, as I wrote out my mortgage payment this morning, I resisted the temptation to add an extra $100 to the payment.

I also toyed with the idea of selling some of those taxable mutual funds to fund either my 2011 Roth IRA and/or my 2012 Roth IRA, but it's probably not a good idea given how thin my income/assets are spread right now. I have so many ambitious money plans and it's killin' me not to be able to make any headway toward achieving them.

I had accumulated about $35 worth of amazon gift certificates in small denominations ($5 to $15) from participating in an online forum, and while I have a dire need for mole deterrent and mulch this spring, I couldn't think of anything I "needed" at Amazon.

So I started browsing and spent way too much time trying to decide how best to spend these gift certificates. I liked the idea of getting food, since I need to eat anyway, but wanted to get something that was a bit of a treat that I wouldn't ordinarily buy on my spartan budget. So, umm, I ended up buying 5 pounds of black licorice in the shape of Scottish terriers.

Now in fairness, it's NOT my fault that amazon only sells candy and stuff in bulk sizes. so this was a $27 purchase, which I'm sure will raise some eyebrows. But I'll have plenty to share and satisfy my licorice cravings for quite some time to come.

This is just the prelude to my much bigger gift certificates I'm excitedly working toward, $250, with my new citi card.

I heard back from my legal editing client and she said it's unusual for her to get this many cases all at once, so I guess she isn't destined to become a big money-making client for me. More like a periodic money-maker.

I also saw that Agway had what I would consider an unusually low price for mulch. Now that I have mulch on the brain. I recall in the past when I had a yard of mulch delivered, it cost about $100. That was the cedar mulch, which is probably more expensive than other stuff. But anyway, Agway by me is advertising a yard of "bulk brown mulch" for just $40. I'm guessing delivery would be extra, but how would you otherwise get the stuff? Oh yeah, I think you just drive up with your pickup and have them dump it in, so i guess that rules me out.

I will call some local nurseries tomorrow and then on Tuesday I'll call the landfill about their mulch.

Thank god i got up the verve to go for a late afternoon walk around 5 today. 50 minutes. I have really noticed, with some alarm, a growing inclination to pass on the exercise. I was always a big walker, since my college days. Walking, hiking, these were always big things with me, year-round, in all kinds of weather. Now, if it's a little too chilly out or the sun is too hot, I really have to push myself. I don't want to lose my lifelong habit. There's absolutely no excuse for it since I'm not even working f/t.

1. Finished up my part-time job work this morning, for the week. Now I feel "free."

2. Promptly settled into legal editing of a 19-page document for someone and was able to finish that. Problem is, I priced this job way too low.

I don't want to bill her for higher than my estimate (although it's called an estimate for a reason), so I am hoping when I'm done with these 3 initial jobs she'll mention more work on an ongoing basis. When she does, I need to tell her I underestimated my time spent on these projects. and I'm charging her less than my usual amount, becus I really wanted the work. I'm charging her $35/hr. I estimated 2 hours on the one job, and I spent 4 hours on it.

So, um, i don't know how she'll react to it, and I'm not sure exactly who is paying my bill. It comes from her, but it could be her employer that's exactly footing it.

After that, I did tidy up the north side of the house, mainly by weeding (a stupid invasive weed that takes over) and sweeping up a footpath running from front to back of house.

I also managed to roll 2 very large cut up logs from the sugar maple that was cut up, and rolled them down from backyard to driveway for eventual pick-up by someone with a fireplace.

Yesterday I continued fiddling with my veggie garden fence. I wanted to move the whole thing over by two feet or so to allow a suddenly thriving service berry tree to grow without its branches hanging over the six-foot-high fence. I also enlarged the garden a bit overall, I think. But I can't seem to get the posts in a straight line and everything looks a bit topsy turvey. I need a MAN for this.

Maybe tomorrow I'll do a seed inventory and see what I've got and what I need.

The grass seed that I planted a week ago never sprouted, despite quite warm temps here. The seed is left over from last year, possibly the year before, so I don't know if grass seed is one of those things that won't germinate well if it's old. I often get years old veggie seeds to grow.

I spent some time on Craig's List hoping to find someone either giving away free cedar mulch or willing to barter it away. I found neither. I really, really need mulch for my many perennial beds which will be rapidly taken over by weeds without it.

But being underemployed and very much living paycheck to paycheck, I hate to plunk down $100 or a bit more on a yard of mulch. Buying it by the bag would not be economical becus I need so much. I am working now to spend $2,000 with my Citi Thank You card and will get $250 in gift cards for it next month hopefully, and could possible get a gift card for Lowes or Home Depot, where I could buy bagged mulch. But again, it would be much more economical to have it truck-delivered here by the yard. Just hate to spend the extra $$.

The other thing I REALLY need this spring is some sort of mole deterrent. There are a variety of applications you can spray on the lawn. Again, hate to spend the money, but moles/voles have been tearing up my lawn for years, and it's getting much worse. They must be doing a lot of subterranean procreation becus all I see is their tunnels.

I also spent time on Craig's List looking for the elusive 3rd part-time job (after my publishing job 3 days a week and my freelance writing) for 1 to 2 days, must be local and pay $15/hr. It's A LOT harder to find something like that than you might think.

I heard back from the commercial real estate appraisal company saying they hired someone else for the job, and while I still haven't heard from the other place i interviewed at, I saw they are back to advertising the position online.

When I returned my DVDs at the library yesterday, I scored the March issue of Money magazine on the bench. The bench near the back door is where people leave assorted books or magazines for others. It's going to be my Saturday night entertainment.

I got my $200 check from Citi rewards and also a $30 check from a Unilever hair product study. Cool. I have a product test or something (not sure exactly what) coming up on Friday for $30; it's hardly worth it to drive out there, but I agreed. I guess I will net $20 after gas.

I signed up for a class on vegetable container garden at a local nursery and puts on a large variety of free classes each spring. Of course, they want you to buy something, but you don't have to. It's been a while since I grew edibles in containers, but I'd like to see what else would work well. I've grown tomatoes and eggplant in containers, and I know people grow potatoes in garbage cans. It could make sense since I have a very sunny driveway and they could be lined up there against the stone wall, protected from deer or woodchucks that wouldn't venture onto asphalt.

Despite the zillions of times I fear my resume has been lost amid the shuffle of hundreds of applications, there are other times when a close match results in an instant response.

Just 10 minutes ago, i saw an ad on Craig's List for a writer for a commercial real estate appraisal company. I sent in my resume, a writing sample and a brief letter highlighting my real estate background. Then, 5 minutes later, a principal from the firm emailed me and asked when I'd be available to come in.

Bingo!

The job sounds interesting but i can't tell from the ad whether it's full-time, part-time or contract work. It states the salary is $25-$50K. That would be very nice work for a contract job, not so nice for a full-time job, although I'd consider it if it was at the very top of that range with benefits.

In the ad it does say that some regional travel would be necessary, so use of a car and flexible work schedule is essential. I don't think they'd say flexible work schedule if it was full-time, right? Yet they do post the compensation above as if it's an annual salary. Maybe it's ongoing contract work.

That other local publishing job is still a possibility.

Just heard back from the appraisal firm. We're on for tomorrow at 9 a.m. He said call me when you get to the building, we're hard to find. Umm, I don't want to tell him I gave up my cell phone ages ago. I guess I'll just have to allow extra time in the a.m. to find them once I get there. How hard could it be?