My Small, Almost-$10,000 Napa Valley Wedding

And that’s without buying a dress!

I wanted to take a moment to post our exhaustive list of wedding expenses, because I tracked everything.  And I mean everything.

Be forewarned: This is not your typical “$10,000 Wedding” list, which purports to describe more than it actually does.  Most wedding expense lists include everything day-of: The dress, the food, the photographer, and the space and don’t talk about all the little things that add up.  So, to remedy that, here’s the TMI list of our wedding expenses, from the engagement ring repair to the stamps to the Spanx, to mistakes and unforeseen events that cost us $650 – the difference between keeping and breaking our budget.

Target budget: $10,000
Actual spent: $11,343 (This will be $10,993 if we get our $350 cleaning deposit back from the local community center, which I’m hounding them about weekly.)

Engagement Ring and Wedding Bands:

• Family heirloom engagement ring repair (chipped diamond replacement, resizing, and replating): $700
• Engagement ring appraisal for insurance: $150
• Wedding bands: $145

Invitations and All Mail-Related:

• Custom, letterpress save-the-date cards: $493 (At the time, we’d planned to have two receptions in two states and ordered save-the-dates accordingly.  We scrapped that mental anguish for one reception, but wasted about $250 here).
• Custom, letterpress invitations: $674 (Another mistake cost us here: I ordered invitations per person and not per household, almost twice as many as I needed, hence the extra $300 spent here.)
• Rehearsal dinner invitations: $50
• Envelopes: $54
• Stamps: $32
• Gold pens to write with: $5
• Return address labels: $10
• Bridal party gifts: $289

Bridal and Groom(al?) Attire:

• Groom’s tie and pocket square: $110
• Spanx: $40
• Bride’s new shoes: $100
• Dry cleaning for bride’s something-old dress and groom’s suit: $189 (If you’re in the SF Bay Area, I cannot recommend Crystal Cleaning Center in San Mateo highly enough.  Go see Lynnette!)
• Bride hair (trim and style): $42
• Makeup artist deposit: $100 (The week of our wedding, the makeup artist decided she wanted to arrive three hours earlier than scheduled so she could attend a personal event.  It wasn’t going to work, so I’m currently out $100 but trying to get my deposit back since she changed the arrival time stated in our contract.)
• Bouquets: $0 (A gift from my mom but otherwise $18 for three bouquets.  I cannot stand florist prices and the local florist quoted us $345 for three small bouquets.  Can you say “extortion”?  Instead, my mom went to Cal Mart, found two of the loveliest, bright bunches of flowers, split one bunch for the two bridesmaids, wrapped ribbon around them, and we had utterly gorgeous bouquets that lasted all day and into the next… for $18.)

Reception Space and Decor (We were married at a family member’s home, which took care of the ceremony):

• Calistoga Community Center (13 hours at $9/hour – no, not a typo): $135
• Community Center cleaning deposit (refundable): $350
• Cleaning supplies: $16 (The bathroom was filthy and stinky when our rental time arrived, so I ran down to the always-full-of-awesome Cal Mart and bought some Mrs. Meyer’s products.  My mom, grandmother, brother’s girlfriend and I then proceeded to scrub the bathrooms.  Hey, it kept me busy and gave me less time to worry about trivial things!)
• Event liability insurance for one day, required by community center: $175
• Handmade soaps for guest gifts: $195
• Glass chimneys for homemade centerpieces: $100
• Fabric for ceremony not-a-chuppa-but-looked-like-one: $64
• Fabric for cloth banner: $48

Food and Wine for 44 Guests:

• Wine: $500
• Cake: $0 (A gift from my grandparents, but otherwise $200.)
• Caterer (full cocktail and dinner service, china, linens, service and gratuity): $5,014

Photographer and Prints: $1,500

This Old Coffee Maker

“My coffee maker is ancient and I would very much like to have a more modern one.  This one seems very nice and I promise it will get a lot of use here.  I can pick this up at your convenience.  Thank you for your consideration.”

” I would absolutely LOVE to accept your coffee maker !!! I am disabled but my caregiver can pick it up when it is convenient for you.  Can pick up at your house or your work place.”

“I would love to give this a new, permanent home!!!  I can pick up at your convenience.  This would also be very appreciated as I am on a fixed income due to some ongoing health issues, and haven’t had the extra money to buy a new one at the moment myself.”

This is just a small sample of the email responses I received after posting an old coffee maker on Freecycle.  The “free” coffee maker I bought four years ago with a $40 Target gift card I’d received from my grandmother for a birthday present, which she’d gotten from a bank for opening a new account.  The coffee maker I rolled my eyes and wanted to smash in the morning with its incessant I-am-done beeping sound.  The coffee maker I swore burned my coffee no matter what temperature the little burner tray was set to.

That’s how I saw it, at least – right up until I read those Freecycle responses, which literally brought tears to my eyes.  Up until then, I considered myself a grateful person – to the point that said gratitude can annoy Sweet Mans until he says “Stop acting like you’re still poor!”  I was wrong: I’ve still been taking things for granted, and not just my coffee maker, but my not-yet-disabled status, my physical freedom, my good health, and my not-really-fixed income as well.  I think of those things — my health, my independence — in the abstract, but those messages brought the gratitude home.

Tough Money Love recently wrote about building a better mood about your money.  If you need a kick in the pants (and you may not even know you do), I recommend Freecycle.

All My Worth

I started reading All Your Worth last night.  I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, and recommend All Your Worth for its incredibly simple saving, spending, budgeting plan.  I use Mint.com but, deep down, I’m not a fan of tracking every penny spent or of budgeting.

Warren breaks finances down accordingly:

• 50% should go to must-haves
• 30% should go to wants
• 20% should go to savings

Buy the book (it’s $5 at Amazon) or check it out from your local library if you’re interested in why this method works so well.

Warren states that this plan will alleviate worry, and that is one of my goals: Although I save what I think is a reasonable amount, I always worry that I’m just not saving enough.  Today, I followed the exercises in the book to see where I fall.  

Must-Haves (monthly)

• Rent – $860 (includes utilities)
• Mortgage (includes property taxes; does not include extra payments, which belong elsewhere) – $2,374
• Assessments – $203.36
• Food – $180 (This is not all actual expenditures on food; just a place holder number for the minimum you’d need to survive.)
• Utilities (only cell phone for me) – $65
• Transportation (no car; just a monthly transit pass) – $45
• Healthcare – $14
• TOTAL MUST-HAVES: $3,538/month (This does not include my homeowners insurance, which is a one-time payment of $354 and is not a monthly expense, so for my own convenience I omitted it here.  Normally you would include all insurance in the Must-Haves category.)

Savings (monthly)

• 401(k) – $1,154
• Emergency fund – $500
• TOTAL SAVINGS: $1,654/month 

Income

• Salary income (after taxes) – $91,311/year
• Rental income – $12,000/year
• TOTAL ANNUAL INCOME: $103,311 (approximately $8,600/month, if there are three Fridays in the month – we get paid every-other Friday.)

What did I learn?

• My must-haves are less 50% of my total income… as long as my condo is rented for $1,500/month.  There’s the rub!  Without my rental income, my must-haves would be more than 50% and I’d be in a much tighter spot.
• I am saving 20% of my income almost exactly (probably more, since I occasionally throw in birthday money, extra money from checking, or a tax refund).
• I’m already less worried.  I now feel that I’m doing what I should be doing and that it’s enough (which was the missing piece).
• These findings also confirm other suspicions I’ve had for a while.  I can now prove that I can’t afford a car (even though, with a post-tax salary income of $91,000, many people think you CAN afford most anything even if you don’t WANT or NEED it) and be doing what I should be, financially.  
• We absolutely could not (in our present situation, all things being the same) afford to have children and keep doing what we should be.  Now that I’ve gone through this exercise, I am even more shocked that anyone can live in the Bay Area AND make less than we do AND have a car AND kids.  How can you possibly do that and maintain the 50%/30%/20% plan?

Frugal WTF of the Week

 

Watered down hydrogen peroxide - just $6.69!

At the grocery store today, the words “non-chlorine bleach” caught my eye.  Since this is an idea I can get behind, I took at look at the ingredients list.  The FULL ingredients list (which you can verify here) is:

• Hydrogen peroxide
• Water

Look at the posted photo for a moment.  Diluted hydrogen peroxide… for almost $7!  The bottle is 64 oz. of hydrogen peroxide and water.  Walgreens has two 32 oz. bottles of hydrogen peroxide for $3!  That’s 64 oz. of hydrogen peroxide alone.  So the extra $4 in the expensive green brand is for… water?

I’m the type of person who learned (thank you mom and grandma) to clean with vinegar, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, water, and sometimes a squeeze of lemon or a drop of essential oil.  Therefore, my immediate reaction to seeing diluted hydrogen peroxide for almost $7 was “No one would pay for that.”  That, however, is always the cue to a good idea: If I would never pay for it, it usually means someone else would.  

As Sweet Mans said when he saw this, “Ah, but remember, it has THE POWER OF NATURE!”  Right.

My Friend Foreclosure, Almost One Year Later

Last year, a friend of mine decided to stop paying his mortgage.  If you’re new to this blog, you may be interested in Part One and Part Two of his story.  

Recently, a few of you have emailed to ask for an update.  I haven’t posted one because, well, nothing much has happened since May 1, 2008, the day my friend stopped paying his mortgage.  For the first few months, my friend received voicemail messages reminding him that payments were past due, followed by letters asking him to call the bank to make payment arrangements.  Around late September or early October he stopped hearing from the bank altogether.  My friend received not a single voicemail or letter until yesterday.

Yesterday, my friend received a letter that stated only that the bank hoped to go to court next month to officially begin foreclosure proceedings.  My friend called the bank for more information, but had an odd conversation with the customer service representative who answered.  With so many mortgages having been bundled and sold, my friend was curious to find out if the bank from which he obtained his mortgage is still the legal holder of the mortgage note, and if they could prove it.  The customer service representative told my friend that she did not have to answer his question.

Now that’s really interesting, isn’t it?  If I’m not mistaken, it’s questionable if an entity that does not legally hold the note to the property can file any sort of claim (like a foreclosure) on the property.  Failure to produce original mortgage paperwork has stopped other foreclosures. My friend is now looking into that, but this possibility may explain why this process has already moved so slowly – or not.  The sheer scale of the housing crisis is probably reason enough.

But there’s a new layer to this story as well: My friend’s condo building is in hock.  My friend purchased a condo in an eight-unit building.  He purchased his unit in early 2007.  At the time, only one other unit in the building had sold.  These were all of the units that would EVER sell in my friend’s building, to date.  This complicates matters because, in order for the control of a condo building to move from the building’s developer to a condo association, approximately 75% of the units must have sold.  Since only two of eight units sold, the “flip point” from developer to new association was never achieved.  The developer remained in charge of the building, which he probably never hoped for.  Most developers are eager to stay out of the property management business.

The developer was a questionable fellow to begin with.  He was an immigrant and not necessarily a U.S. citizen, which isn’t necessarily an issue.  But he engaged in some strange behavior, such as putting up wooden boards on the inside of the wrought iron fence surrounding the building and painting the wrought iron fence gold.  It looked ghetto, to put it mildly.  

A few months ago, the developer fled.  He’d been living in one of the six finished units in the building and left.  No one has seen him since, and no one can reach him.  There have been a few visits from various professional looking entities inquiring about the developer’s whereabouts, but the two lone building tenants have no idea where he is.  They suppose he returned to his country of origin in debt.

Given this, what will become of the building in which my friend resides?  We joked this evening about a “foreclosure race”: Which will be foreclosed on first, the building or my friend’s unit?  What will happen if no one can produce mortgage notes or other original paperwork on my friend’s unit or the building?

This is when the mind has fun entertaining unlikely scenarios.  Should my friend start renting out the finished condo units in the building for reasonable sums?  Will he or the other tenant be able to file a squatters claim on the property?  Oh, the possibilities.

As promised earlier in this story, I’ll keep you posted.

Midwest by Southwest

Yesterday was the day for found money!  I found $7 in singles in a jacket pocket and, just when Sweet Man and I are anticipating another $300+ for flights to visit his parents (Sweet Man’s mother is very sick with cancer right now), a $150 Southwest airlines voucher arrived in yesterday’s mail.  The voucher accompanied one of the nicest letters I’ve ever received, apologizing for 2.5 hours spent on the runway after landing in Detroit, waiting for a gate.

This was absolutely not Southwest’s fault.  There was nothing they could have done to prevent it.  Our flight left on time and arrived early.  It just so happened that, while we were in the air, three nearby airports closed completely because of snowstorms.  Any flight scheduled to land at those airports was diverted to Detroit, the nearest airport that was still accepting flights for landing.  The Detroit airport was not prepared for the extra two airports’ worth of holiday traffic.  

It seemed that most of the people understood the situation and made the best of it.  One man had a guitar and had everyone on the plane singing Christmas carols to remember the spirit of the season (and avoid mutiny).  If anyone should get the voucher, it’s him.  I don’t his name, but I did take a photo with my iPhone.  I’m not sure anyone would have believed the part about singing carols while waiting on a runway otherwise.

$150 may not seem like much to you, but it’s a huge gesture for something Southwest could not control.  $150 is extremely helpful to us right now, when we may have to travel more frequently to see a sick family member.  

So – I’ll just add this post to my already long list of accolades for Southwest.  When I moved to San Francisco, for instance, one of my four bags was delayed.  Southwest knew where it was; it was on the next flight to San Francisco.  Southwest found me in the baggage claim area (they were holding my name on a piece of paper, like a driving service would) and TOLD ME it was late, which prevented frustration at my not seeing it.  For a delayed bag – not a LOST bag, mind you, just a delayed one – they offered me a $250 voucher.  

I also use the Southwest Visa which, due to the $14,000+ I put on credit cards last year, results in my getting a free Southwest roundtrip anywhere in the U.S. once each year, purely from credit card points.  This kind of reward is definitely part of why I put so much on that credit card: The points incentive is working!  But – it only works because I genuinely enjoy flying with Southwest, and all the nice folks I meet on their planes have the same kind of praise I do.

Bridal Breakdown Day

I had a real, albeit brief, nervous breakdown today.  Yes, I broke down on the bar at Tra Vigne and in bed for about an hour after we got home.

Today, we visited a party rental establishment to take a gander at plates, napkins and other requisite wedding nonsense.  I don’t mean to offend, but it is nonsense for Sweet Man and I.  I’m just not one of the women who has “dreamed of this day forever.”  

Anyway.  Sweet Man and I almost always selected the absolutely rock-bottom, least expensive items.  And yet… And yet.

$1,200

That was the quote we got today for the rental of wedding detritus, specifically (this detailed itemization is for those of you who, like me, ask “How exactly do wedding expenses these days come to be what they are?”):

• 50 chairs for the ceremony at my future in-laws’ home: $125
• 50 dinner plates: $25
• 50 dessert plates: $25
• Coffee cups: $17.50
• Saucers: $17.50
• 50 each of forks, knives, salad/dessert forks and teaspoons: $92.50
• 50 each of red wine, white wine, water and champagne glasses: $242.50
• Tablecloths and napkins: $172.50
• Basic delivery: $65
• Delivery and pick-up during specific delivery windows (i.e. when we actually need things to be delivered and picked up vs. whenever the rental place deigns to do so): an additional $125/each way for $250 total
• An additional 50 white chairs for the community center, should we decide we don’t want to use the metal folding chairs there: $190

While the saleswoman spoke too rapidly for me to follow, picking up tablecloths on hangers and saying things like $37 per” and “$18 per,” I honestly thought I would faint.  I started to feel lightheaded and warm and out of my league.  You see, in my geek parlance: There’s a chick bit in me that isn’t flipped.  I was not, like so many of the female persuasion seem to be, born with a princess dream or a vision in my mind’s eye of The Perfect Table Setting.  When I am exposed to women whose chick bits appear to be 100% flipped, I don’t know what to do.  They look at me as if I’m inadequate and require instruction.  Today, for instance, I was nastily reminded that “You may not care, but people DO respond to beauty.”  Thanks, chick bits.  At least Sweet Man was there to assure me that I didn’t imagine the implied inadequacy.  

Hence my breakdown. 

I am beginning to understand how certain wedding decisions are made.  I am beginning to understand, for example, how couples just give up and book a $5,000+ venue simply because everything is included – everything from linens to basic flowers to napkins and glasses.  I understand the desire for an all-inclusive venue because we tried so hard to save money by selecting an inexpensive reception venue.  The community center in our particular Napa Valley town cost us $9/hour, or $135 total for 15 hours (plus a $350 fully refundable cleaning deposit).

You get what you pay for.  $135 means nothing is included.  The community center has folding chairs and tables.  That’s it.  Plates and glasses have to come from somewhere, and someone has to bring them from somewhere else – for a fee.  Always for a fee.  I’ve learned that anyone will do just about anything you ask them to do – for a fee.

After receiving this quote of almost $1,200, Sweet Man and I scoured restaurant supply places online to see if we couldn’t buy everything we needed for less or the same price as the rental quote.  We couldn’t.  Even if we could have, where would we have put 50 of everything?  We have a tiny apartment and no storage space – and no one we know in their California priced housing has storage space, either.  

There is also the reality of the logistics: Even if we had been able to purchase dishes, etc. for less than the cost of rental, we (well, someone) would have had to spend the entire day after the wedding running dishes through a dishwasher – and have someone make sure the dishes first made it back to the house at some point after the reception.  Do we want one of our guests or family members to be loading up dirty dishes at the community center and running it back to the house?  No.  They should be enjoying themselves, not doing chores.  

Could we just chuck all of the dishes we bought into a recycling bin and call it a day?  It was tempting for a few minutes, but it’s a Marie Antoinette tendency that we don’t need to indulge.

So.  This is how it happens.  This is how you end up paying for wedding things that you need but don’t want to pay for. 

People keep telling us we’re “getting away with not spending much” (as if it’s luck vs. planning) but $1,200 for renting wedding items feels absolutely criminal.  I hate to use the typical bleeding heart statement, but i’m sure we could feed a few villages in Iraq for about $1,200, or help my unfortunate cousin with trashy, useless parents through college.  

Or do anything else besides pay for dishes.

The idea of compostable, disposable bamboo plates is not dead yet…

Knitting on a Budget

If I’d been on my best behavior with Mint.com tags, “Malabrigo” would have been one of them… and we would have found that I spent about $300 on Malabrigo yarn alone in 2008 (to say nothing of all the lovely yarn out there, like Rowan).  In 2008, $80 was the least I spent in a single trip to Imagiknit, my local knitting shop.

I am a strong believer in spending my money locally.  I want to live in a neighborhood with thriving merchants and a yarn store I can walk to.  I will not stop shopping at Imagiknit anytime soon.  I spent nearly $1,000 at Imagiknit in 2008.  Knitting is an expensive hobby.  

I am, however, trying to be a bit more budget conscious when it comes to yarn shopping in 2009.  Today, I spent less than $60 at KnitPicks on enough yarn for two sweaters (24 balls), leg warmers, and fingerless gloves (4 more balls).  Shipping is free on KnitPicks orders of $50 or more, though $50 is tough to hit due to their low prices.  KnitPicks is a fantastic resource if you’re knitting on a budget, or have projects that you don’t need especially delicious yarn for.  

Case in point: I’m about to attempt knitting my first sweater.  Since this will be my first sweater, there’s a high likelihood that I’ll need to rip it apart at least twice and will end up in tears at least once each weekend.  Do I need to do that with $24/skein yarn?  No.  If I fail miserably, I’ll fail with yarn that was $1.99/ball instead.

 If two sweaters, leg warmers, and fingerless gloves end up costing me $58 (and time), I can confidently say that I couldn’t have gotten the same items for less from China.  Yarn is one of my few exceptions to signing the Compact, so if I want some new sweaters, I have to buy them used or make them.  I’m going to try to make them.

2009 Financial Resolutions

Another day, another year of financial goals to write down.  Here goes!

* 2009 Resolution #1: Beginning in February, I will put $2,000/month into accessible cash/emergency/non-retirement savings.
The $2,000/month target comes from the usual $500/month I put into my emergency fund + the $1500/month rent check from my tenant.  I need the January rent check to pay for my Invisaligns or credit card debt (one of the two), but if I’m careful with my money elsewhere I should be able to use February’s rent check for savings only.

$2,000/month from February through August (the last month my tenant will pay rent according to his lease) = $14,000.  Assuming the worst, that I have no rental income through the end of 2009 (and consequently that I could only put in $500/month from September through December) and that gives me an additional $2,000 ($14,000 + $2,000 = $16,000).

Hence…

* 2009 Resolution #2: I will add at least $16,000 to the existing balance of my emergency savings this year.  
If I do, my emergency fund balance will be about $26,000, which is exactly what I want.  With $26,000 and unemployment, I could live for at least six months and not lose my house in a worst case scenario (which is losing my job and not finding one for a long time).

* 2009 Resolution #3: I will sign the Compact for six months (January 1 – June 30).
Lord, this one is going to be hard.  I don’t really want to do it, but I need to do it.  I just don’t think I’ll stop shopping and using that credit card for non-essential expenses.  Besides: I don’t need anything.  How fortunate am I to be one of the few people on Earth who can say that?

My Compact exceptions (many people have them) are:

• Yarn.  I’m not even apologetic about this one.  I knit.  I rarely find used yarn and I don’t have the time to go hardcore, buy used sweaters, unravel them, and dye the yarn.  I work full time and am finishing my Ph.D.  I can have new yarn.
• Underwear.
• Gifts for others.
• Stuff for our wedding.  I was able to buy all of our linens used, at estate sales and thrift stores, but am not sure I’ll be able to do this with everything.  I’ll try, but I’m hedging.

2008 Financial Year in Review

Oh heaven help me!  Do you KNOW how much I charged on my credit cards in 2009?  This is surely the single most horrifying thing about my financial review of 2008.

$14,600.55

Now.  That is not my balance: I paid my cards off, in full, every month (save one).  

Still.  That is NOT OK!  Just because I can pay my balances does NOT mean I SHOULD spend that much.

Some of that $14,600.55 was business expenses.  Some of it was property maintenance for my new renter.  But most of it?  Oh you KNOW most of it was crap I didn’t need.  There’s one thing to fix in 2009.  Lord in HEAVEN.  I will NOT spend that kind of money in 2009.

Moving to a calmer state now…

How did I do on my 2008 financial resolutions?  Pretty well, to my own surprise.

2008 Resolution #1: STAY out of debt.
SUCCESS.  But, as we’ve already seen, I still spent too much.  Sometimes it was difficult to pay off my monthly balance – and that’s almost as bad as carrying a balance, in my book.

I currently have a $1,500 balance due by January 18.  I’m going to pay it in full, but I FEEL bad just having it there, in existence at all.  I am going to use my credit cards a lot less in 2009, for nothing except major stuff like travel, property maintenance, and business expenses.

2008 Resolution #2: Save 20% of my income ($22,000, or $1,800/month) between emergency and retirement savings (probably $12,000 to 401(k) retirement, which puts me below the $101,000 ROTH income limit so I can put… $4,000 into a ROTH, plus $6,000 to emergency savings). 
I only put $8,700 into my 401k this year – well under the $12,000 mark.  Gee, you think a few thousand dollars of what went on my credit cards could have instead gone to retirement?  You know it could have – clearly, the money was there for shopping, so it was there for retirement.  In 2009 I want to hit my $15,000 limit, but I’m not sure I will.  That’s nearly double what I put in this year, and I’m still focusing on having accessible, substantial emergency cash for something like a long period of unemployment.

2008 Resolution #3: Have at least $10,000 in emergency savings by the end of the year. This should not be difficult since I’m approaching $4,000 right now, so $10,000 is the bare minimum.
SUCCESS!  There is just over $11,000 in there as of today.  Again: A few thousand of what I spent on crap could have gone into emergency savings instead.

2008 Resolution #4: Pay $100 extra to principle on my second mortgage every month.
SUCCESS!  I’m still on auto-pay for $100 extra per month and will continue in 2009.

2008 Resolution #5: Continue to use Mint.com to track spending (which shows I’m spending more than I think and estimate in my head).
SUCCESS.  And, as you can see and much to my chagrin, Mint.com is showing me exactly where my money is going.

2008 Resolution #6: Do not buy a car for another year.
SUCCESS!  Thank goodness I didn’t need to get a new job that required a driving commute or something awful.  This one also carries over to 2009.