The Latest on My Friend Foreclosure

What happens when you stop paying your mortgage?  My friend stopping paying his mortgage as of May 1, intentionally, so we’re finding out in real time.

August 1 is coming up, which will mark my friend’s third month of absolutely no mortgage payment.  Not much has happened, honestly.  Earlier in July (right around July 4) the bank started leaving an automated recording on my friend’s voicemail each day, just a voice saying “Your payments are past due, please call us to make arrangements.”

Today, he received a letter in the mail that said, in short, “We have secured legal counsel and we are moving to foreclose.  Please resolve this matter to prevent foreclosure.”  It wasn’t very informative, but it sounds like things may start moving now.  We’ll see.

Meanwhile, my friend has taken to keeping his cash out of his bank account because he feels this will prevent any possible seizure of it by his bank.   This means, for example, that my friend withdraws almost all of his paycheck the same day it is automatically deposited and keeps it in a safe in his house.  He also told me he’s putting a lot more into retirement accounts, which he feels can’t be seized.

I am curious about what assets can and cannot be seized by a bank (mortgage holder) during a foreclosure.  The Illinois Pro Bono site is helpful in outlining the usual foreclosure process in Illinois, and does not state that homeowners threaten to lose cash or other assets to the bank; it only states: “The homeowners risk the loss of their home (including any accumulated equity), a personal judgment for the debt, and the loss of future credit, since a foreclosure judgment appears on credit reports.”

This document (PDF), Illinois Mortgage Foreclosure and Eminent Domain Procedures, provides some interesting nuggets (and though it’s hard to assign weight to a document sans author or organizational affiliation on the document itself, this one is via the American Bar Association website – which may admittedly mean nothing).

Anyway, the document states (on page 3) that the “mortgagee (“lender” in common parlance) can sue on the note rather than foreclose” and that in this case, “the judgment becomes a lien on all of the borrower’s assets, not just the mortgaged property.” This may explain why my friend, despite the letter stating that the bank will foreclose (vs. sue on the note, for instance), is hiding his assets.

Time marches on…

I Love Barb at National City Mortgage

In my post of July 8, I mentioned the stroke-inspiring letter I received from National City Mortgage, saying my monthly payment was going up by a little more than $300/month. “But, but I have a 30-year-fixed mortgage!” I protested. “How can this be?

It was due to an escrow analysis for property taxes, which I realized after much adding and subtracting was $2,000/year too high. I called National City Mortgage, walked patient customer service people through my math, faxed letters, downloaded documents from the Cook County Tax Assessor site and faxed those, and so on.

Look at today’s date.

It’s Thursday, July 17. Today marks exactly one week since I received that escrow analysis from National City Mortgage.

And it’s all fixed. In a week. My payment for August is back to normal, thanks to St. Barb.

These days, I call service like that a miracle. I now have no desire to refinance my mortgage.

In the past week, two customer service representatives called me of their own accord to follow up. Yesterday, Barb, sweet angel o’ mine Barb from the escrow analysis department, called me to apologize (I do not lie, reader, when I tell you that Barb still has those antiquated things we call manners), and asked (sit down if you’re not already) if “she could walk me through the revised numbers to see if they sounded right to me.” I nearly collapsed at my desk. “See if they sounded right?” Barb is either genuinely an angel or a Ph.D. in rhetoric or both, but it worked on me.

But she meant it! We had EXACTLY that conversation today, reviewing numbers…

And her math matched mine, to the penny. Bless you, Barb. You’ve averted one more nervous breakdown… and saved me $300/month that I REALLY need right now.

Ain’t We Got Fun?

The paycheck (the first with my raise in it) came at midnight, and not too much is left.  It also included tuition reimbursement from my employer – my paycheck is not usually this high.  So it goes.

Of $5,049.93:

• - $2,200.00 set aside for housing costs (thanks again for the messed up escrow analysis, National City)
• - $1,890.74 tuition reimbursement (paid directly to my school first thing this morning)
• - $250 to the emergency fund
• Leaves a $709.19 balance, keeping in mind that
• The Verizon bill is coming $72 ($10 higher than usual for some reason I have yet to locate on the bill), and
• My $193.68 condo assessment is due on Aug. 1, and…
• My honey’s birthday is Aug. 5.  And I am one of these terrible people who loves spending money on other people almost more than anything else.

Boy howdy, these are some good times!

New Rule: I cannot spend more than $150/week until I have renters again, which I hope to Jesus, Mary and Joseph will be the end of August or sooner.

Mr. Amis, I’ll have to fight your war against cliche another day, because it’s time to count my blessings…

Are we downhearted
I’ll say that we’re not
Landlords mad and getting madder
Ain’t we got fun
Times are so bad and getting badder
Still we have fun
There’s nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get laid off
In the meantime
In between time
Ain’t we got fun!

Raise You Your 401(k)

I was recently promoted to a new position at work and received a $10,000 raise ($700/month or $350/paycheck).  I just increased my 401(k) allocation to 12%, so that all of my raise is going straight into retirement savings.

What do I really want?  I want an Amazon Kindle.  I want it more than anything I’ve wanted in a long, long time, even more than a Tempur-Pedic mattress.  My friend brought one over when he came to dinner on Sunday, and lo, this Ph.D. student did not know the Kindle could hold PDFs after you convert them.  I have four full, huge binders full of papers, and about 50 additional PDFs on my Mac, all of which I refer to fairly frequently for my dissertation work.  Do you know what dumping those binders would mean for my lower back when traveling?  Surely the Kindle would save me money on massages.  I would love the Kindle only for its PDF carrying capability, and yet it has so much more power to bestow reading joy.

Oh well.  As my mother always said to us (and yes, she said this all the time, even in a month like July), “Well, Christmas is coming.” It’s right up there with “This house is not a democracy.”

I know I should throw my raise into my 401(k), and that someday I’ll be glad I did it, as I have been for every retirement count to which I’ve contributed since 1998, even when I thought I couldn’t afford to.  But today, given my cash-strapped no-tenants times, it pained me to do it.  I have to keep reminding myself that in a couple of months I’ll be even keel again and just grit (gnash?) my teeth for now.  And gnash them on brown rice and lentils

Let’s focus on the good:

• 12% of my total pre-tax, salary income ($125,000) is $15,000.  This means that, for the first time ever, I’ll be maxing out my 401(k) contribution. *Pat on back.* Now if only the market would behave a little more nicely…
• That 12% of my income for retirement savings only doesn’t reflect all of my savings.  I also put $500/month toward my emergency fund.  That brings my total, current, annual savings rate to almost 17%. I think that’s pretty good, since I keep hearing that the average American savings rate hovers around -.07 to 1%.
• The above bullet points don’t count rental income.  What happens when I have rental income again?   Let’s assume I get about $100 less rent per month than I’m asking – $1,400/month.  That’s $16,800 per year and, when added to $125,000, a total annual income of $141,800.
• Assume that I treat rent checks as I did last year, which is to throw them into savings and pretend they don’t exist (except for the occasional vacation paid for in cash, or a few plane tickets to see family so as not to carry credit card balances).  That would mean an additional $16,800 in savings, for a total annual savings rate of about 25%. Even better.

Can I do it?  We’ll see.  Let’s see if, one year from now, I have been able to save $31,800 above and beyond what I currently have. I’m going to aim for August 1, 2009 since that will be one year from the first paycheck that will show 12% retirement savings.

80 Minutes Till Midnight

It’s been a while since I looked forward not just to pay day, but specifically to the midnight bell that announces pay day.  There’s $56.20 in my checking account right now, but I haven’t touched my savings account or changed my savings behavior during this first of two rent-free months.

I am feeling so down and gloomy right now, though.  Money is flying out of my hands and not because I’m, oh, buying anything I want.  No, it’s because:

• National City Mortgage increased my monthly payment (again, this is on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage) based on an escrow “analysis” that somehow determined my property taxes are $2,000 higher per year than they actually are.  I am now spending hours per week trying to get Cook County to talk to National City, and to get National City to acknowledge and pay attention to all the paperwork I’ve been sending them.  I nearly had a nervous breakdown the other evening, sitting at the dinner table and crying in my hands because I am in the position of having to prove that I don’t owe the bank as much as they say they do, starting with that increased August payment.
• My renters are leaving.  It will be $925 to paint the interior of my condo – and, sadly, that appears to be a genuine deal after a cursory run through Angie’s List.  I feel like I’m 75 years old: “That’s what it costs to get the interior of a mostly exposed-brick condo painted?!  I remember when it cost $125!”  And as for painting it myself, ha.  I tried that once.  It took me as long to get the blue tape up as it did a good painter to prime the ENTIRE CONDO.  No exaggeration.
• What if I can’t rent my condo myself and have to give one month’s rent to a listing agency?!  I can FEEL the thought of this causing the left side of my neck to twitch right now.  If it’s possible to give oneself an aneurysm, I might just be doing it.
• I’ll also need to pay house cleaners, because I can do that or use a vacation day, and I can tell you what’s worth more to me right now, cash poor as I may be.
• I’ll also need a locksmith.  Toss a few more hundred dollars into the money vortex you can see above my house right now.
• Let’s not forget all those weddings we have coming up and the itinerant gifts (four months, five weddings).
• Followed by Christmas.
• And some babies that are due.  Not mine, fortunately, because it would only have a drawer to sleep in at this rate.

80 minutes until midnight, people.  80 minutes.

Sick of Bail Outs?

For everyone but you? Me too.

Oh hey, how are your shares of Bear Stearns performing these days? You do own shares of Bear Stearns, don’t you? I only ask because, well, doesn’t everyone? You and I each paid for them with our tax money. So where are our shares?

Well, even if you somehow didn’t get the shares of Bear Stearns you paid for, surely you’ll have some Fannie Mae shares in your portfolio in the near future, right? Surely our portfolios won’t be forgotten in this next round of bail outs!

I’d better never hear the word “free market” in this country again. The Fed just won’t let the market do its job. Again and again the government intervenes in the market to rescue an entity that, as shown by its behaviors and outcomes, deserves to fail. Often enough, the entity fails anyway and you and I are left holding the tab.

United Airlines is a good example of this. After September 11, the Bush administration spent $15 billion in an airline bail out (that’s $15 billion for multiple airlines, not just United; I believe each airline received approximately $900 million). United filed for Chapter 11 anyway. U.S. Airways filed for bankruptcy the year before United did.

The government bail out after September 11 did not change what was going to happen; it only delayed the inevitable. United workers still lost their jobs (some before and during the bail out, some later). The bail out did not prevent bankruptcy and thus ensure that pensions would be paid. The bail out did not in any way improve airline service, which is worse now than it has been in my adult lifetime. We should not bail out corporations. Corporations need to be allowed to fail if they deserve to fail.

Do you honestly think we won’t have airplanes or airlines if some of them fail? No. We will still have airplanes to fly in, I promise. But you and I shouldn’t pay for a penny more than our tickets.

Why does the Fed seem to think shareholders, lenders, and creditors can’t, or shouldn’t, ever lose money? Losing money is a risk that shareholders, lenders, and creditors take every single time they invest, and they need to be allowed to lose money sometimes. When you own shares there is no guarantee that those shares will do well. I know that. I invest in stocks that I hope do well, knowing full well they might not. No one ever bails me out from the consequences of acceptable risk.

Let’s take Bear Stearns, because it’s a recent example in which we, the citizens and taxpayers that pay for our government’s very existence, were told that Bear Stearns had to be saved lest worse calamities befall us. I heard, like you, that there were supposedly terrible consequences to not bailing out Bear Stearns. The same is now being said of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

For some reason, though, I’m having a really hard time finding well founded, factual documentation of those supposedly terrible consequences. For a Ph.D. student who spends a lot of time doing research it’s a new and interesting problem to have.

Let’s start with the media. “Bear Stearns shareholders were nearly wiped out,” said the LA Times. So what? That’s the risk investors take. You win some, you lose some. So one of the always possible consequences of being a shareholder almost… happened. Uh, OK. Still not feeling the shock and awe here. Next “reason” please!

But then, this is the media. We didn’t expect much from them anyway.

Let’s forget the media altogether and look at the transcript of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Senate testimony. Surely this will contain some good, solid, well established reasons for the Bear Stearns bail out. I mean, he IS talking to the Senate and he IS the guy who ultimately made this decision.

The first few paragraphs describe existing problems in the economy not related or specific to Bear Stearns. Bernanke mentions that sales of homes are down and mortgages are harder to come by. Again, this was all underway prior to anything happening to Bear Stearns. OK, it’s context setting if nothing else. Moving right along…

Bernanke goes on to talk about the Fed’s role in market interference, or, um “improving” the market. He says, “Well-functioning financial markets are essential for the efficacy of monetary policy and, indeed, for economic growth and stability. Consistent with its role as the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve has taken a number of steps in recent weeks to improve market liquidity and market functioning.”

Well, at least he acknowledges the Fed’s interference in the “free” market but all with the best intentions of fixing things. He lists what steps the Fed has taken and, in a few cases, explains why a particular step was taken (but certainly not at any detail that’s satisfying to me).

Bernanke gets to the Bear Stearns decision here: “To prevent a disorderly failure of Bear Stearns and the unpredictable but likely severe consequences for market functioning and the broader economy, the Federal Reserve, in close consultation with the Treasury Department, agreed to provide funding to Bear Stearns through JPMorgan Chase.”

This is worth spending some neurons on.

Bernanke tells us, first, that one reason to bail out Bear Stearns is “To prevent a disorderly failure of Bear Stearns.” Why is a “disorderly failure” particularly, as opposed to any other flavor of failure, bad? Why is “disorderly failure” in and of itself be a bad thing for anyone besides Bear Stearns shareholders (and, obviously, Bear Stearns employees who might lose their jobs)? The vast majority of U.S. citizens are neither shareholders nor employees of Bear Stearns, so I fail to see, at this point in Bernanke’s testimony, why the Fed and Treasury Department should consider saving them for this reason.

But let’s look at the second half of that statement, “the unpredictable but likely severe consequences for market functioning and the broader economy.” After reading this, I’m not confident that Chairman Bernanke knows the true consequences of not bailing out Bear Stearns. He doesn’t know what the consequences are because they are “unpredictable,” but somehow he can say with certainty that the unpredictable consequences will be “severe.” Magical. We don’t know what the consequences are, just how strong they will be. Got it. It’s also telling that “market functioning” precedes “broader economy” in sentence order. We know what is literally of first concern here.

This might sound naive, but you know what? I don’t believe you, Bernanke. I truly do not believe that anything bad would happen to me or the “broader economy” if you had allowed Bear Stearns to fail. I cannot believe that anyone would suffer besides the shareholders (who should always know they might lose money), Bear Stearns employees, and the people involved in markets somehow who are rich people, not the vast majority of American citizens. Most of us Americans pretty much just keep going on day to day, for the most part, and things don’t change all that much with market activity. How much does my daily life change with Dow activity? Not at all, frankly. If Bear Stearns fell over in the forest and I didn’t have to walk past news stands or forgot to turn on NPR, I would never know. I’m not buying it, Bernanke.

Apologies for the digression. Back to our man at Senate, Ben Bernanke: “Normally, the market sorts out which companies survive and which fail, and that is as it should be. However, the issues raised here extended well beyond the fate of one company.” All right, that stands to reason. If your company issued loans to Bear Stearns, for example, and they failed and couldn’t pay their loans, your company might be in trouble. Your company never should have put itself in a position in which one failure could take the mother ship out, though. Your bank deserves to fail too.

Then there’s more detail on this:
“Our financial system is extremely complex and interconnected, and Bear Stearns participated extensively in a range of critical markets. The sudden failure of Bear Stearns likely would have led to a chaotic unwinding of positions in those markets and could have severely shaken confidence. The company’s failure could also have cast doubt on the financial positions of some of Bear Stearns’ thousands of counterparties and perhaps of companies with similar businesses. Given the exceptional pressures on the global economy and financial system, the damage caused by a default by Bear Stearns could have been severe and extremely difficult to contain. Moreover, the adverse impact of a default would not have been confined to the financial system but would have been felt broadly in the real economy through its effects on asset values and credit availability.”

The first few sentences, if you read them carefully, still don’t tell us very much. What are these “critical markets” in which “Bear Stearns participated extensively” exactly, and further, why are they critical and to whom are they critical? Why, exactly, is a “chaotic unwinding of positions in those markets” a bad thing? Isn’t that precisely what happens in markets? Things change rapidly, “chaotically” sometimes even, and some people lose money and some people make money when “positions shift,” do they not?

As for “could have severely shaken confidence,” again I ask so what? I assume Bernanke means investor and/or consumer confidence and again I ask, so what? Consumer confidence was down before and after Bear Stearns, so it would be difficult to identify Bear Stearns as the CAUSE of falling consumer confidence. As for investor confidence, so what? If investors aren’t confident they don’t invest. I mean this seriously: If any of you can explain, concretely, why I should care about “shaken confidence” in Bear Stearns, please tell me. I am so eager to know.

Finally, Bernanke again borders on something that might interest most of us: “Moreover, the adverse impact of a default would not have been confined to the financial system but would have been felt broadly in the real economy through its effects on asset values and credit availability.”

There’s that “broad” term again without anything to back it up.

As for the rest, the “asset values and credit availability,” those were already going downhill before anything happened to Bear Stearns. As Bernanke himself notes earlier in his testimony (see the third paragraph), “Notably, in the housing market, sales of both new and existing homes have generally continued weak, partly as a result of the reduced availability of mortgage credit, and home prices have continued to fall.” Bernanke himself notes all of these things as already having happened.

From that statement I can only conclude that the non-investor focused reason to bail out Bear Stearns comes down to “less of more of the same.” That’s worth $29 billion? Really? To not fix things that had already happened and would continue to happen (though perhaps at a slightly different pace) regardless of what happened to Bear Stearns?

Since no one, including Bernanke himself in his own (or his trusty speech writer’s) words can tell me what the specific negative consequences of not bailing out Bear Stearns would be, beyond those NOT specific to Bear Stearns itself, I can only turn to the specific consequences to you and I.

You and I are worse off for bailing out Bear Stearns than for not. “Home prices have continued to fall,” as Bernanke said. There is still “reduced availability of mortgage credit.” “Asset values” are low and “credit availability” is tight and has not improved since the bail out, but has gotten worse. Anything that might make our lives better (i.e., the ability for you and I to obtain a line of credit to start a small business, perhaps) has not improved in any measurable way as a result of the $29 billion we handed over to Bear Stearns.

If nothing else, you and I paid taxes to already wealthy people instead of veterans or college students, or anyone or anything you care more about than Bear Stearns shareholders. For me it’s non-loan college scholarships, investments in rail transportation, and stopping global warming. You probably have your own list, which can include a gamma ray shield for all I care, but I bet you cared not a whit more for Bear Stearns than you do for gamma rays or Amtrak.

It’s cold comfort to remember that the the bail out to Bear Stearns is just a loan. Surely we’ve all learned by now that loans are not necessarily repaid. The Fed has essentially insured troubled securities. If those securities STILL end up completely worthless (and they absolutely can, there is no stopping that) then the Fed, and you and I, would be out the whole $29 billion. Under the terms of the deal the Fed made with JPMorgan, JPMorgan is only on the hook for the first $1 billion in losses. But who knows how much the losses might be? We, the citizens, will foot the bill for the rest while the corporation, JPMorgan, cruises happily along.

The bail out has only taken shareholder risk and moved it over the government, which we pay for.

And here we are again, today, with news of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obviously the Bear Sterans bail out did nothing to prevent those problems (remember how Bernanke thought the bail out of could help prevent problems with similar businesses?). How many more bail outs will we give before we’re convinced they’re not working?

What do we have right now? Unemployment – was happening, still is. Inflation due to interest rate decisions – was happening, still is. Similar companies struggling and the Fed thinking of helping? Was happening, still is, you bet. So tell me again why we bothered?

Money for Nothing and Your Wax for Free

Single Ma was right (when isn’t she)?  It’s better to give than to receive.

I followed her advice recently, because I realize that I’m happiest when I’m giving to and doing more for others.  Selfish, isn’t it?  True, though.

Precisely when I shouldn’t be, I donated $50 to a friend’s small business via PayPal.  I’m donating monthly to two charities.  I started making a baby blanket for our friends. I’ve volunteered to weed and mulch in Golden Gate Park.

This is not the best time for this.  My renters are leaving!  My bank is over-charging me for escrow!  But I can’t be helped.  I felt like giving.  I love it.  Someone else always has less.

And what happened?  Karma walked in!  A woman who used to work at our office now works at a salon… and invited me in for a free eyebrow and bikini wax this week!  At a high end salon!  Just when I was trying to go a few more weeks before making that appointment.

Isn’t it funny how things work out?  When this woman worked at my office as our admin, she said I was one of the few people who thanked her for the thankless work of office admins – dealing with crazy phone calls, sorting our mail, putting packages by our desks, taking out the compost (hazard pay!), ordering weekly free lunch and dealing with gripes about it…  Totally thankless work.  I made sure to thank her, because I meant it, and hey, wow, now I’m getting a free waxing at her new place of employment that would normally cost $72.

Single Ma, if you lived here, I’d get you an appointment to!

Mind Your Money

Because no one else will.

I am now the project manager of my property taxes, which involves Cook County and National City Mortgage.  You might think that I’m their client but, oh no, it’s me who is the project manager here.

On Thursday I received a letter from National City telling me that my monthly payment was going up to $x.  No explanation was included, just a “This is your new balance due August 1.”  I found this odd because 1) I have a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and 2) my taxes haven’t changed.  Cook County reassesses triennially, and that happened in 2006 so the taxes stand until 2009.

I called and learned that the increase was due to a recent “escrow analysis.”  National City escrows money from my monthly payments for my property taxes and they pay Cook County directly.  Future home buyers, don’t ever agree to this arrangement.  Escrow your own damn money and earn interest on it.

“But,” I thought, “I am almost paid up for the 2007 tax year.   Why would my escrow go up now?”

I spoke with St. Jennifer today, ran her through all the numbers I ran this weekend (“but see, I’m overpaid”) until we realized that National City thinks my property taxes are 50% higher than they actually are.

How did this happen?  Oh, typical flawed thinking: National City took my entire 2006 property tax payment ($4,000) and added the first tax installment for 2007 ($2000) to it, to come up with “an annual total property tax bill of $6,000.”  The thing is: It’s not.  My property taxes are $4,000/year, NOT $6,000.

I now have to get Cook County to send me and National City a copy of some sort of statement showing what my total tax bill is for ONE year.  I’ll let you know how much time this simple task actually takes to complete.

Don’t you love this sort of thing?  I did absolutely NOTHING wrong.  The bank made a wacky assumption not based on any real information (certainly not on the tax bills, which show clearly that I owe $2,000 twice each year).  Yet I’m the one who gets to spend hours fixing this AND paying the consequences.  I am, for example, currently over paying my escrow but… this is what the bank says my payment is.  Their word trumps mine, faulty as it may be.  If I pay less than the monthly payment (according to my bank, reality be damned) while this is getting fixed, you know full well what will happen to my credit score.

And oh, it has already taken about four solid hours, looking at records on the phone with National City, waiting on hold for 22 minutes with Cook County, etc.

Be vigilant about your finances.  Question everything.  No one will do a better job of it than you.

Recession Recipe: Red Bhutanese Buddha Bowl

You can thank the lovely Kris Carr at my.crazysexylife.com for the “Buddha Bowl” term! This is a healthy but super tasty recipe I adapted from “I Am Graceful” on the Cafe Gratitude menu. I know it’s super tasty because it was supposed to be MY lunch for the week but then Honey tasted it and he said, “Ohhh it’s my lunch too right? I want a free lunch too!” “Free” he says. Sass.

Ingredients (all organic in this case, so prices reflect that – conventional ingredients will cost less):

• 1-2 cups red Bhutanese rice ($3/lb. at our local food co-op in bulk)
• 1 bunch cilantro ($1)
• 1 bunch mint ($2)
• 1/4 cashews ($2) – optional (but I love them)
• 1/2 bunch green onions (i.e., 3 green onion stalks)
• 1 box or small bunch pea sprouts
• 1 avocado (or as much as you like) – ($3-$4/lb. organic)
• 2-3 tomatoes, diced ($3-$4/lb. organic)
• 1 can (14 oz.) lite coconut milk ($1)
• 1 tsp. chili paste (remember, you can always make your own 1 tsp. of chili paste with 1/4 tsp. each of paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, and garlic powder).
• 3 TBsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• water

Directions:

• First, prepare your rice.
• Rinse the rice in cold water.
• If you have a rice cooker: Place the red Bhutanese rice in your rice cooker. Add 1.5 cups of water for every cup of rice (i.e., ratio or rice to water is 1:1.5).  This is the rice-to-water ratio to use for red Bhutanese rice: a 1:2 ratio makes the rice too sticky and gummy.  Use the “plain” setting on your rice cooker, or whatever setting you’d use for white rice.  Red Bhutanese rice does not require extra time and should not be treated like brown rice, even though it is similar to brown rice in color.
• If you do not have a rice cooker, just boil: Boil 1.5 cups of lightly salted water for each cup of rice you have.  Add the red Bhutanese rice.  Stir and cover.  Boil for 20-25 minutes, stirring periodically.  This boil should be more like a “rapid simmer” so the rice doesn’t scorch and stick to the bottom of the pan.
• While the rice is cooking, chop your veggies except for the tomato and avocado.  You want to save the tomato and avocado as more of a topping/garnish right before you eat or serve this.  Otherwise they (and everything else around them) get mushy.
• Chop the pea sprouts, green onions, mint, and cilantro.  Toss it altogether if you’d like.  You can also store it all in the same container.
• After chopping (and maybe refrigerating) your veggies, make your coconut sauce while the rice is still cooking.
• Add the coconut milk, tomato paste, and chili paste to a sauce pan (small is fine).  Stir it well.
• Bring the mixture to a boil.
• Simmer for 3-5 minutes.
• Set aside, stirring periodically to avoid creating a skin on top.
• When the rice is done, pour as much coconut sauce as you’d like on it.  Add your chopped veggies and tomato and/or avocado for garnish.  Voila.
• If you’re frugal, repeat this on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for lunch – ha!

Humans: Built to Adapt Quickly!

When something prompts me to change my behavior very quickly, I am reminded of the fact that I can do it… and of how often I don’t because I “really don’t have to.”  I admit it!

Take last week, for example.  I found out that my renters are leaving in August.  This means that I really don’t know when I’ll see another rent check and that I have some related expenses coming up (changing the locks, getting my unit deep cleaned, painting the few non-brick walls).  I am determined not to use money from my savings account or to carry a balance on a credit card (not even for one month) to deal with this. Right now, this translates to $322 left until pay day (July 15, I’m lookin’ at you, lovely little calendar square that you are).

And isn’t it something?  My behavior changed instantaneously, the moment my renters called me.  You lose your job and suddenly you’re cutting coupons and selling things on eBay, presto!  Ka-zam!  Your renters call and you turn around to call the YMCA to cancel the sort-of-rarely-used $44/month membership and shooting amorous glances at your dried lentils and red Bhutanese rice.

I spent $135 this weekend, more than I’d anticipated.  I spent $17 on four skeins of yarn to make a baby blanket for friends, who have been on an adoption waiting list for months and just got a brand new baby girl born on July 3!  We are SO excited for them.  They’re the most wonderful people ever.  But you see, that’s the thing about adoptions – you don’t know when they’re going to happen!

The remaining $118 was spent on groceries, though we at least have a LOT of food to show for it and NO reason to eat out.  It’s Sunday night and we already have leftover fish stew, leftover pasta with summer vegetables, and lunch made for a few days this week.  We had better pancakes and bacon at home today than we could have had at most places in San Francisco.  Now we just need to make sure not to let leftovers go to waste.

I am determined not to eat any lunch out this week or buy coffee… or, come to think of it, anything else.  I’m going to see how long I can go without spending a cent.

When I get a little panicky like this, though, I have to remind myself of what’s real:  Right now, everything is fine.  I am healthy, first of all, which means I have no real problems.  I have $322 in my checking account until pay day – and there isn’t a single thing I need, so I can just calm right down about that number.  Oh, I remember many a time when I was down to $5 or $15 before pay day.

What am I worried about?  Since the day my renters appeared, I’ve used almost every check they gave me to pay off credit card debt and, when that was done, threw each check right into savings.  I’ve been treating the rent checks like gravy and am so glad I did.  I have no credit card debt to worry about right now, and it’s the idea of not having rent coming in that is scaring me more than the reality.  I know what it’s like to live without those rent checks – that’s what I’ve been doing!

I also need to focus on feeling grateful for the karmic blessings that have come my way in the past week, and not just on the “my renters are leaving” thought.  I found out that my friend, who lives two blocks away from my condo, will be out of town for the exact same days when I’ll be in Chicago dealing with my condo.  I am sad not to see her, but this means that I can tend her garden and get her mail while I have a free place to stay for a week – a place that could not be more conveniently located for running back and forth for painters, cleaners and, lord willing, prospective renters.

I am also grateful for the karmic timing in all of this.  I already had a plane ticket to Chicago for a school meeting that will take place 10 days after my renters leave.  Sure, it might be a little better if I could come in sooner.  But you know what?   The flight cost less then than it would now, and those dates mean I have a free place to stay convenient to my needs.  I can still kill multiple birds with one plane-ticket stone: school meetings, seeing friends, dealing with my condo.

The fates have smiled on me with this synchronicity that makes my life so much easier.  If this has to happen now, it’s all happening in the best possible way so far.  I am so fortunate and I must remember to acknowledge that.