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

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.

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.

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.

Erudition

Here are some fantastic personal finance articles you should read, if you haven’t found them already.  I admit to being especially fond of stories about declines in consumption: w00t.

• Consumers Feel the Next Crisis – It’s Credit Cards (New York Times)
• Talk to Me Like I’m Five: What to do with your money now (Salon)
• American retailing: Left on the Shelf (The Economist)
• Economy Shrinks as Consumers Cut Back (for the first time in 17 years, apparently) (New York Times)

On Gettin’ Hitched

A less refined way of saying: Mans and I are engaged!  (And no, though I may be 31, I am not knocked up… or rather, with child).

This means we’re going to have a wedding.  Mans and I were stunned at how quickly everyone around us moved from happiness over our engagement and a very celebratory atmosphere to wedding planning – and spending.  We even received bizarre questions like “So are you moving to a new apartment?”  Because… we’re the same two people, who already live together?  Zuh?  

Believe it or not, we’ve been engaged for one week and we’re about finished with our frugal yet elegant wedding plans.  Now we just have to execute on our frugal wedding plan.  So far, our frugal wedding plan consists of:

• Recycled Rings: An engagement ring circa 1935 (that means Deco! Yay!).  It belonged to Mans’ grandmother, one half of a very successful, 50+ year marriage.  Good luck symbols don’t get any better than this. A small chipped diamond needs to be replaced, the prongs need to be checked so I don’t lose my stone, and the band needs to be re-plated in white gold.  All told, this will cost much less than a brand new engagement ring.
• Inexpensive Bands: Two simple white gold bands for each of us (no additional diamonds, please – save it for an anniversary) – $200-$400/each.
• No New Dress: Fortunately, I already own a handmade, custom, floor-length silk charmeuse dress I designed four years ago, for some black tie weddings.  It cost $300 total, as part of the cost was barter (I did a business plan for a designer/seamstress friend opening a boutique – and yes, she’s still in business nearly five years later!).
• Small Guest List: I know, we’re weird.  We want our wedding to be comprised only of the people closest to us, with whom we are in regular contact.  This means our total guest list is 34 people (us included).  
• Wedding at Home: Most places don’t have any extraordinary meaning for us.  Mans’ parents, however, have a small home in the Napa Valley (near us) that is filled with nothing but happy memories for all.  I can’t think of any other place as near and dear to my heart (and also wedding appropriate) as this one.
• Few to No Flowers: We’ll be standing in a backyard garden with roses in it.  Enough said. 
• Inexpensive Invitations: Mans’ brother is a graphic designer.  We’ve asked him to design our invitations, which he now wants to make his gift to us.
• No Gift Registry: We don’t really need anything and can afford what we need.  We both thank our lucky stars every day that we’re some of the few people on this planet who can say that, and that’s enough for us.  In lieu of gifts, we’ll ask for donations to two nonprofit organizations we already support.

That was easy, no?  Now we just need to schedule the caterer and arrange for a small cake (we already know who will do those), and find out who handles things like tables and chairs.  

Done.  No stress, no drama, all in cash, all paid in full by us, not our families.  We’re in our early thirties.  We have wonderful families who raised us well enough to secure steady, gainful employment and not act like spoiled royalty longing for “our big day.” Our families have done more than enough for us, and now we just want to thank them for getting us this far.  Yes, I realize we’re in a unique position not to need help to finance our wedding – and we’re grateful for that, and for everything.  

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have found someone who shares my values.  I can’t wait to just be married to him already!

Money Making (and Taking) Coin Machines

My change jar was half full yesterday, so I decided to risk an experiment with one of those coin sorting machines at our newly Whole-Foodsified Safeway.  Think spot lighting, lowercase fonts, and faux wood, just-like-a-hipster-barn entry.  I’d never used a coin sorting machine because they used to advertise how much of your change they took.  The machines at our local Safeway, however, are devoid of any notice about the fact that a fee is taken – and yes, I looked for all small print.

Anyway.  I had just over $40 in my change jar, and the machine levied an 8.9% fee, taking about $3 worth of my change.  This left me with a voucher of $38 to use on my groceries.  The voucher had to be used at Safeway within the next 24 hours.  Since we’ve just returned from Maui and needed groceries, that wasn’t an issue for me.

So – that’s how the coin machine at Safeway works, for the unfamiliar.  I was willing to spend $3 to experiment this time around.  Next time, though, the huge change jar goes to the credit union for a deposit.

Because cash goes where my calendar shows…

And nobody knows… but me.

I tracked 30 days of cash expenditures in my handy little paper calendar during September.  I don’t believe September was exactly a representative month, given my renewed focus on savings, but if not the most accurate data it’s at least some data.

First, I was curious as to how well my expense tracking would stack up to cash withdrawals from the ATM.

• According to Mint.com, I pulled $520 out of the ATM slot during September.
• According to my calendar, I tracked $524 spent.  I may be a control freak but at least I’m diligent.

So, where did it go?

• Eating out: $353
• Taking cabs: $35
• Buying a dress: $39 (slap)
• Buying makeup: $42 (slap)
• Buying yarn for knitting: $12
• Sight seeing (things like park entry fees): $13
• Miscellaneous (homeless guy, friend IOU, and tailor):  $30
• TOTAL CASH: $524

Let’s see how October goes.  It will be another outlier due to the Hawaii vacation with which I kicked off the month, but I have to stay in the habit.

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…

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!