Spring cleaning (& ThredUp Review)

Now that I'm not 20... 23... or even 25 anymore, I have learned so much about about the value of money vs. the value of material items. 

my new favorite artist - found here

When I got my first engineering job, as a co-op student, I all of a sudden had this huge income of money (going from $0 to $30/hr as a 20 y/o). In return, I saved about half and spent the rest on clothes. Unfortunately this is before I really valued material and make over quantity. So while I should have invested in a suit to wear for interviews, I bought party dresses and tons of jeans and shirts - because I could... and I was 20.  Oh, and was totally dedicated to the idea of "I have to buy this, it's on sale!"

When I was 23, I hit my next wave of "ooo income, must spend!" - I got hired full time, and moved to Seattle. This is the phase where I decided to buy every dress imaginable. And join every members-only site out there. 

Then, by 25, Ben had moved in - but my habits were hard to die. This is about when I tore my ACL too, and was on bed rest while I recovered. I gained a ton of weight, but still had access to shop online in my old "I'll get there again" sizes. (we all have those clothes in our closet, amiright!). 

When I got married, Ben and I decided to really start taking finances seriously. And more so when we were considering getting pregnant. I looked in my closet and found that I had pants that still had tags, and were 4 sizes too small. I had half my dresses still with tags, and equally not in my size.

The first step was to follow the moto "if I don't love it, don't buy it." and "only buy items that fit now."  These steps helped to refine how I was shopping. 

The next, huge step was to clean out my closet, and start new. I hated having so many unused and totally new clothes in my closet. I just never found an outlet for these items. There was a lot of equity in them, many were designer or quality name brand items. Then I stumbled on this post - and because I don't have an instagram following, I decided to go use ThredUp.

The first Bag, in which you order from them and is free, I filled up to the brim with about 20% gently used clothes and 80% still has tags. They go through the bag and list what they kept and my profit of it. The rest of the unused items go to a charity or a textile recycling factory - or you can pay like $13 to have them send your items back to you. They ended up using a lot of my items, which gave me an awesome, almost $100 payout. Of course I realize this is a FRACTION of what I actually spent on my items, but I wasn't using these items and was not earning interest by having them in my closet. They also send you an email after you items are sold. Here's a small snapshot of how my items are doing.

I just got done stuffing my next bag, which has about 30% new with tags items and more business-esque items - I even threw in a few pairs of barely used shoes. We'll see how I do, but it feels so good getting rid of BAGS of items.

If you sign up using my referral link, I win and you win!

bank accounts: joint vs individual

 

 

Before we got engaged, I came into the relationship with increasing debt from my one credit card, a car loan, phone bill, and student loans - all accounts that needed paid monthly. I also had been using my PA-based bank, exclusively. On top of all that, I was really financially private and (honestly) very ashamed of my constant indulgences and money-smithing I was doing to get everything paid. No questions were allowed to be asked, and I took great offense to any budget discussions (sorry ben!). 

When we got engaged, the idea of being a jointly operated unit was pretty daunting. We were already living and financially operating together - paying the rent with two separate checks, alternating who got what utility, whoever went grocery shopping paid the bill, etc. And I kept thinking what a pain it would be to transfer my automatic bill payments (see: monthly payments, above). I had asked other recently married folks but they all seemed  to already have a joint account, years before getting hitched. Surprisingly, they also seemed to have a greater difference of pay (Ben and I get paid very similarly). This further confused what we should do and how to handle it.

We settled on a slow transition and complete honestly. I had to also change, monthly, how my direct deposit from work was being divided up between my old acct, new acct, and joint acct.

Step 1 - set up new accounts (individual and joint). 

Step 2 - stop using old bank account

We both agreed I was nuts for having a bank account that had the nearest ATM 2300 miles away. Step 1 - stop using old bank account and take inventory of what was linked to it (Groupon, Car, Phone Bill, Roth IRA, paypal, credit cards, amazon, etc). I then grouped them into easiest to update bank information (Groupon) to hardest (Car Loan). I had transitioned everything except my car loan and my credit cards by the time the wedding came around. The idea was that I was going to finish out my car loan (paid off December 2012!) and just use the money in the acct to pay off my credit cards, so they didn't affect my "spending money" in my new acct. Dumb idea, and it really just slowed down the pay-off process. 

Step 3 - agree to what comes out of the joint acct. 

We decided that Rent/Mortgage, Utilities, Groceries, and out-to-eat adventures. It sometimes includes Dog Boarding, vacation excursions, and other "together" events. But getting to this point was hard to do when I still had money in my old account. It wasn't until I moved everything and closed the acct that I had enough "cushion" in my new personal account, could I share the joint spending burden. The joint acct is viewable from both our individual accounts - so there's no sneaky spending or hiding. For more information, because we get paid very similarly, we both put in equal amounts of our paycheck into our joint account to pay these joint purchases. I think if our pay had a greater difference we would do a proportional pay into our joint acct (and savings).  

 --------------------------------

Final Thoughts

- Be open about financial worries with your spouse. My dad said it the best when I asked for his advice: "when you get married, your debt and his debt is now both of your problems" - we're a team and needed to be able to ask for help. Your financial habits will affect your family.

- Don't judge. the past is done and the money is spent. The best way to go about it is to be understanding and help each other make better decisions. 

Anything you want to discuss? 
What are some of your financial stumbling blocks?

more from the money series

TOP photo from our engagement photos, taken by an amazing photographer friend - check out his stories and pictures here
BOTTOM photo from our wedding, via Cardens Photography in PA

taking another look at money

Again, one of our goals before we start to try for a baby is to get to a place of financial independence and freedom. 

FOUND HERE

What does that look like?

For us, two married mid-twenties Engineers, it looks like a beautiful color coded excel workbook. If Ben could find a way to program it into MatLab, I'm sure he would. But I'm the over-scheduler and controlling type, so I get to set the program and excel works great!

First off, kudos to those who have actually successfully been able to budget their money. We have tried, and tried, and revisited our budget and the only thing that worked or clicked for us was to make general "buckets" for where we spend our money. Using this book (please buy, it's amazing!!) we took a look at our monthly spending (joint and individual spending) and put them into either "Must haves," "Wants," or "Savings" using the "All your Worth" method. Again, buy the book. After looking at two months of spending we were at 50% Must Haves, 42% Wants, and 8% Savings. it should be a 50-30-20 ratio. Basically, it proved that we were overspending and not saving.  This awful revelation, led us to where we are today - and cemented the idea that you can't save money when you constantly owe it.

Back to the excel sheet. We keep track of 3 things: DEBT (every credit card gets a separate excel tab). STUDENT LOANS (I get a tab of all my loans and amounts, Ben gets one too). SAVINGS (a tab dedicated to the ways and specific amounts we need to deposit each month to get to our three months saved salary goal). That is also our ranking of what to work on first (credit card debt) and what to work on last (paying off student loans comes after building up our savings for us).

Then I get real nerdy and for each credit card (and really every loan/savings is tracked this way too) I put the starting month and the statement amount for that month. I then estimate that if we pay off $XXXX amount each and every month, when we should pay it off by. We started with our smallest credit card to work on first (yay small achievements!).

The biggest and only rule to follow is to  

STOP USING YOUR CREDIT CARD. 

seriously. no amount of bonuses, miles, or cash back 

make up for carrying a balance and interest due.

So we started this journey of financial freedom March 1st, 2013, and as of May 2nd, 2013 we have successfully paid off our Bassett Furniture card, my Citi Credit Card, and are now working on our final beast - our joint Chase credit card. We have a solid, totally do-able plan for building our savings and have been really amazed at the amount we were able to pay towards these cards (like, 3 months ahead of schedule, amazed). 

Stay tuned for some specific tips we used 

to clean up our "Wants" spending 

as well as tackling the awkward joint vs individual 

bank accounts when married problem.

Baby bucket list (revisting)

Find the original bucket post here

Since last August, we have definitely made better financial choices and developed healthy habits too. 

IOU Letterpress - $6

 We have been rigorously planning our dinner menu and making weekly grocery lists - this not only dramatically reduced our eating out bill, but it lets me better control what I'm eating (and giving us leftovers to avoid the cafeteria food at work)!! I also have been keeping up with my running or walking goals, as well as going to the gym with my trainer. 

Financially, we just couldn't get it together in the last 6 months. There were always things to buy, things to do, and credit cards to use for it. Then came THIS BOOK. And it put some reality to our financial excuses. (seriously, read this book.)

And with some failed attempts of paying off our credit card debt (and costly vet appts that certainly didn't help!) - We realized we were fighting a losing battle if we kept on using our credit cards for purchases. 

Starting March 1st - We stopped using our credit cards. 

18 days in and still no new charges.

We made a poster with the debt amounts on both credit cards, and a descending $1k incremental list that we will victoriously cross off until we get it down to $0. We are going to start with the smaller debt amounts to pay off first, then tackle our larger and final credit card account. It has been a constant challenge not to give in to old habits. But, again, it is so important for us to be debt free (besides the house and student loans) before we bring a baby into the world. ... Which is something we are really looking forward to do. 

How do you handle debt? 
It's been really rewarding so far this month to make some big payoffs towards our debt. I finally feel like we are on the right track to financial freedom!

Traveling to the SWE Conference

Yesterday I started my journey to Houston, TX for the Annual Society of Women Engineers Conference (WE12). It is literally one of my favorite weeks in the year - I've made friends and networked with many women from across the country and this week I get to see them all again. It's a lot of networking, advancing, & sisterhood, with many professional development sessions and workshops throughout the week. 

I was bumped to First Class on my 4.5hr flight yesterday morning. Which is an excellent way to start any trip - Thanks United Airlines! It has only been the second time up there in big seat heaven and was treated to breakfast this time around! Besides getting a drink the moment you sit down, it's 100% personal service the entire flight. 

On the flight, I started reading the book "All your Worth" - which has been truly eye opening. I was a little hesitant because it was written in 2008 and I wasn't sure of its relevancy. But so far it has been spot on and a really can't-put-the-book-down read. Can't wait to go home and put our finances in order!

Today's schedule includes a trip to the local Farmer's Market followed by a few hours of SWE Committee Meetings. 

February's Folly

You know what's hard? 

                    quitting habits.

I relapsed on my resolution. I bought clothes. It was a rush. I had an excuse. I'm not happy about it, but I'm trying to refocus my efforts. 

This past week we traveled to Oahu for our (6-month delayed) honeymoon. As the vacation drew nearer, I felt the urge to buy beach things - it's been years since I visiting a warm beach and the need to update my wardrobe was overwhelming. At first I was resistant... I have a pretty healthy selection of dresses, swimsuits, some shorts and skirts.  Then I convinced myself I needed a new cover up because I couldn't think of anything that I own that would work. Luckily I wasn't going to spend more than $60 so all the incredibly amazing cover-ups at shopbop.com made it easy to say no. 

Then I found a rashguard, something I wanted for our Snuba adventure, and otherwise as a cover up in the water -- AND COULDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.  So, I bought it. -- and I'm glad I did, it was really nice to wear and worked well for me.

But, like any relapse, it trips the wire - knowing that I could break this resolution. I bought something else "for the beach".... two tube tops and a long skirt from American Eagle were justified. I even caught myself visiting my old "members-only" sites daily (eek!).

I don't hate these purchases, and I actually wore them a lot during the vacation. I didn't need them though, and I didn't put quality over consumption. That is what bothers me.

I'm going to try to work on conquering the rush I get from buying things. I have way too many, more important things (student loans, car payment, food, fun) to be spending money on clothes right now.

PS - reading this book right now about breaking habits.

January Trials.

from king5.com Wednesday-January-17

At first, I mistyped the title, accidentally writing "trails", which could also explain the chaos of January. Last week, Seattle was stopped for a very exciting, very cold, winter snow/ice/wind storm. Ben and I, stupidly, drove to work each day, risking our lives just so we didn't have to waste our precious vacation time!  


January did turn out to be overwhelming otherwise for me. I've been getting a colossal amount of emails since December. The window to accomplish everything is ever waning. I kicked my productivity in high gear and got my million "to-do" emails down to around five, which takes my anxiety down a few notches as well. 


I wanted to do some monthly follow ups to my 2012 Goals.


Career
I'm getting back on track after hitting a lull in early January - trying to challenge myself to be better and smarter. I think my next game plan is to start working on finding and following through on my informal mentors.  


Finances
I've successfully have not bought clothing all month. It surprisingly is really easy... When i see the most awesome dress that I really want to buy and couldn't live without I just remind myself that i simply cannot buy anything. And I know it's going to feel AMAZING buying that dress next year, in a more reasonable dress size :)
I used to visit Ideeli and Gilt (member only shopping sites) and drool over the selection of clothes. I've visited Ideeli maybe twice this month, and Gilt maybe a handful - looking at GiltCity and GiltTaste offers, not even tempting myself with their clothing. What a change from last year!

My next goal is to concurrently pay off my credit card debt while also meet my monthly saving commitment so we can eventually buy a house later this year. Cheers to work bonuses and tax returns this season!


Health
While I can't say I've lost any weight, I'm starting to notice this past week that my water intake is much higher and my portions are getting smaller. I still snack... but I'm working on it!  And it seems like I've kicked my latte and mocha habit - it's crazy - When I do go to Tully's in the morning with my co-workers I look at the amazing lattes, but can only get an Americano, no matter how much i think I want a latte!
Last week I bought a fancy scale that calculates Body Fat and Body Water percentages, just have to figure out how to calibrate it!

Ten Dollars at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's at MOVIECLIPS.com

Don’t sacrifice

Don’t sacrifice what you want most for what you want in the moment.

(this is a lengthy one, more of a diary entry - thanks for not judging.)
I've tried to keep that as a mantra for quite some time now. I read it once in a fitness magazine and it's kinda popped up here and there and forever reminding me that each moment I have the choice to stay on track or not. Whether it's my career, my finances, my health - I make choices everyday that affect them. 


At the end of each year I start getting reflective about the past year - my accomplishments and failures and I try and transfer it all into how I can improve next year. A new years resolution without all the champagne and moment promises. 


Unfortunately my intentions have always been undercut by old habits. I know I need to continue to improve and challenge myself at work. I know I need to stop buying things to have (pretty) things. I know I need to stop binge eating and mindless snacking in order to lose weight. I frustrate myself incredibly just thinking about how I continually, year after year, don't meet my goals. Dana, just focus.  


Basically, I've hit my crossroads. I'm not changing, my previous efforts have been futile. 


So here's how it's going to work, okay Dana. 
Career. 
   Suck it up. Remember when you talked to those young girls about how they should be Engineers because engineers change the world, engineers help people?  YOU DO THAT. Your job is actually kinda cool. very important. and you make big decisions every day.  Embrace it. You won't be a minion forever - so be the best damn minion you can right now so you don't have to later.


Finances.
   I'm going to go to an extreme here. I've become an avid and extraordinary online shopper (not something to be proud of).  Next year, starting on January 1st I am going to take a stand against stupid spending (really, another dress, Dana?). I am going to do a clothing diet. YES, I AM NOT GOING TO BUY ANY CLOTHES FOR A WHOLE YEAR. yes, of course I will buy undies and socks as needed. And that's that. done. no spending money on clothes. I think I'm going to continue my addiction to pinterest, it's actually really therapeutic in avoiding actually buying clothes and block the members-only shopping sites I belong to.  
    I'm also hoping, as a sit project to this, to learn and understand where clothes come from & how to buy ethical clothing.

Health. 
   Despite my honestly good intentions I can't seem to remove any fluff. I'm an emotional eater. happy, sad, frustrated, annoyed, stressed, anxious -- there's always something I can chew on. I did okay managing my weight in college; I was much too busy to have time for mindless food indulgences and had a steady workout routine (there was NOTHING better than running at 6am before anyone woke up in a college town. the busy drunken streets were quiet and hungover. looooved it). However, since graduating - finding a balance has been really hard for me to do. Yogi (puppy!) was a nightmare and more for me alone to handle - I quickly learned that he would sit still if I gave him a chip for every few chips I would eat. I would eventually learn to walk with Yogi every day and then join a soccer league. THEN I TORE MY ACL. ugh. for 6 months I sat on my ass. For three months following the surgery I was still on crutches.  I ate a diet of cheese and crackers and and "exercised" at Physical Therapy - unable to steady my walk or fully extend my knee joint. 
   Long story short, I jumped up two dress sizes and felt worse than I ever have. I tried at the beginning of this year to combat this problem with a personal trainer - who was great at reconnecting me to the gym and what I could do to get the most out of my workout. I also started five months of Barre classes. Let me say this another way: Starting January 2011 I did two days of Personal Training, two days of Barre classed, and two days of PT. I literally was working out 6 days a week for 3-4 months. I just couldn't push any weight off. Three months into personal training I finally lost my first 5lbs. I was in heaven. Then I did a month of Freshology and 10 more came off.  I was able to maintain this until my wedding in August and since then it's all come back and more.
    I love working out, I love fitness classes. I don't believe my weight downfall is because I'm a couch potato. I believe I cannot control my bad eating habits. So, starting in January 2012, I will be doing a 9 month hypnosis program in Seattle.  Hey, lily allen did it :). I'll keep you posted on how it goes. They promise a sort of re-wiring of your decision matrix when it comes to food. (ok ok, my words, but that's how my engineer brain interpreted it.) 

Photo via Pinterest via ThxThxThx

I hope your 2012 is the best yet! 
Health and Happiness to you and yours <3
                                       dana.