Money Matters

Since coming home from Respite Care I struggle with what to write about. Between falling asleep when I shouldn’t be and trying to sleep when I should be, I’m not doing a whole lot of anything else. That’s not entirely true. The physical therapist who's been coming to my apartment twice a week just ‘graduated’ me from her part of out-patient care for my broken and misaligned ribs and she’s been taking up two hours of my weeks since getting home. She always came at the same time as Tai Chi classes take place here so I haven’t been able to start them up again. She says I have her permission to use the walker as much or as little as I want as long as I remember to slow down, don’t make sudden turns or stops and starts. Eighty years of walking a certain way and I'm going to change that?

The nurse says she’s going to discharge me next week. “Are you sure you can dress that Mohl surgery site?” she asked and the jaded side of me almost answered that I’d been doing it for almost a year before she came along but the Nice Nancy in me assured her that changing the place I do it at, so that I can sit instead bending over like a pretzel, has made it doable without her. Other than that, taking my vitals and listening to my lungs for signs of pneumonia is all she’s been doing, so I’m glad I wouldn’t be tied down by her by-weekly visits either. And I won’t miss her ordering supplies for me that I really don’t need or want----I have enough wound care products that I could dress a whole military platoon. I can’t be sure before the bills roll in but I’ll bet my deductibles on that stuff will cost more than it would for me to just order it straight off Amazon where I’ll get credit card points as well.

The Occupational Therapist, especially, spent my money like it was sand in the desert. She ordered a toilet seat riser, for example, that still sits unused in a box and can’t be returned. Same with a box of 44 adult diapers that I only used seven of. Then there was the bed wedge and sock aid that I only needed for a minute and a half. But she was the person who had the power over deciding whether or not I was safe to go back to my apartment so if she said I needed a box turtle painted pink I would have said, "I'll take two." I got a bed rail that way and I do like it…only I didn’t get the one she suggested. I canceled the order soon after she left and got another one off Amazon you barely see while the one she suggested yelled HOSPITAL RAIL needed here.

Change of topic: For the first time in my adult life I’m having trouble getting my paperwork together for my income tax appointment with my CPA. And, no, it’s not age related. At least I don’t think it is. It has to do with my newly acquiring financial adviser last summer and not having a working printer now. I told him I wanted my fiances simplified but they are anything but that now. I went from two accounts to keep track of to five and as far as I can tell they all lost money last year. With my old, self-done financial set up I wouldn’t have lost a dime….but the chance of making money wouldn’t have been there either and I can live with that a whole lot easier than the ups and downs I see now. 

I’m anxious for all the bills to roll in from the hospital, doctors and other costs related to my fall. I want them paid off and history but the Adviser has me on too tight of a budget to do that. I’m seeing him on Monday. I need at least one account that is more fluid because I like to pay my bills off in one shot and not having payments hanging over my head. Yes, it’s a First World problem and I try to remember how luck I am to have them rather than the other kind where just finding enough to eat and a place to stay warm is something REAL to worry about. At least World Central Kitchen loves my guilt trips because I just drained all but $10 of my PayPal account with another donation to their cause of feeding people in war and disaster zones around the world. Looking over the charity donations I made in 2022, I saw a pattern. I apparently wanted to feed people and animals during floods, fires, wars, earthquakes and the homeless in inner cities.

I hate worrying about money. I just HATE it! And the scary part is that I see myself in my brother who is giving himself and his kids heart burn worrying about money. So far I’m keeping my worries to myself (if I don’t count my blog readers). So far I don’t obsess to the point that it’s one the two themes I talk about with family like my brother does. When he’s not asking someone to give him a ride home from Memory Care he’s asking someone to give him ride to the bank. And I can’t keep from wondering if this worrying isn’t coming from our mom. She set the standard with her life-long worrying about money---justifiably so, given her childhood but not so much with my brother and me. We were taught by example to always have extra $20 bills stuffed in pockets or books. Always have something to give to someone who needed food for their kids. Even a secret bank account was not out of the realm of possibilities with her. Then we stick a guy in Memory Care like my brother is and expect him to forget the safety net of carrying money on him at all times? We all know how impractical that is in a place like that but still I need to keep reminding myself that his kind of worrying is nothing new. It just sprouted wings to carry the worrying to new heights. ©

Money and Eating Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Reading my blog, people might get the impression that I’ve never had to worry much about paying my bills. With the exception of a few months in my early thirties when I was on crutches and couldn’t work and a few months after my husband's stroke when we had major cash flow issues, that’s essentially true. But both my husband and I worked a lot---had two or three jobs/careers/businesses each most of our adult lives. He was raised on a farm with parents who went though hard times and learned early on never to turn down work if you knew how to do it and he could do a lot of things. He was a tool and die maker by trade, but in the Army Reserves he learned how to drive and maintain heavy equipment which he loved doing, thus he came to own a parking lot maintenance company on the side, making more money with that than he did with his GM job of 35 years. And while I never made much money by comparison I never had expensive tastes or spent above what was coming in.

Following Don’s street sweeper, frontend loaders and snowplows around town with my yellow flasher going was part of my life for decades, and so was helping to fill pot holes and lay down yellow lines and---the biggie---I plowed snow for 17 years. Thankfully, after three years of asphalt patching he dropped that aspect of the business. That’s an awful job, so when you see a crew out working in the streets have pity on them. The heat coming off that asphalt makes you punchy, not to mention it sticks like snot on everything you’re wearing and you have to throw out clothes faster than you can buy them at Goodwill. 

Don tried to get me to learn how to run a frontend loader but I put my foot down and refused to do it, but another woman on our crew was more than willing to learn. It was a match made in bragging rights heaven. She was the first woman in town to do that kind of work and she needed the self-confidence it gave her. He loved shocking all the guys he came in contact with the fact that half his snowplow crew were women. Back in the ‘80s that was a big deal in a male dominated field. Don claimed women were better because we followed instructions and the guys he hired wanted to do things their own way. And, Ohmygod, it was true! The stories I could tell about pissing contests....

Anyway, because I’ve never really had to worry about paying my bills and still having money left over to eat and play, I’ve become obsessed with making as much as I can during my downsizing because I’m worried once I move and my expenses increase---that continuum care place I’m moving to is not cheap---I’ll end up eating peanut butter sandwiches the last week in every month. I’ll need to be on a budget for the first time ever. I take solace in the fact that many of my frugal living blogger friends seem to find budgets and bargain shopping to be a fun challenge rather than a blood sport. And I'm wrapping my head around the fact that there's a difference between being fugal and being cheap. I don’t want to become a person who steals sugar packets from restaurants and toilet paper from gas stations. I dated a guy who did those things before Don came along and I couldn’t stand his cheapness. He was living frugal but on other people’s money. Waitresses for example never got tipped no matter how good the service. Most of us work hard to get ahead and it isn’t right to justify stealing goods or services like he did. That’s not to say I’ve never stolen anything; when I was 12-13 years old I stole a small, ten cents cross from a dime store and I still have it. It’s made out of a clam shell and it stares up at me from my jewelry box, reminding me that a little humility is not a bad thing. We are all imperfect human beings. 

Back to making money as I downsize. Sometimes time is more valuable than money. I had a lot of stock left over from when we had booths in antique malls and were vendors at gas & oil memorabilia collector’s swap meets and shows. Gas stations, during their heydays of trying to market their way to the top of the heap put out a lot of freebies like mirrors, combs, match books, note pads, car window hooks, coin and toothpick holders, poker chips, charms, key chains, ink pens, tokens, games, calendars, thermometers, sewing and first aid kits, maps, etc. etc. We’re talking the ‘30s through the ‘50s, before the drinking glasses most of us remember from our childhoods came along. That’s the kinds of things I’m currently e-Baying. If I had all the time in the world, I could e-Bay my heart out but I can actually see the end of my old gas & old stock and the end is looking good to me. So I’ve started selling stuff in groups of 20 to 50 and I'm giving the swap meet vendors some fun bidding wars. I picked out the stuff that goes for over $50 a whack to sell individually, but stuff under that are going in what is known as junk drawer lots. The most I’ve gotten for a junk drawer lot is $148 but that translates into eating less peanut butter sandwiches at the end of the month. Hey, wait a minute! Sometimes I actually like having peanut butter for dinner, especially when I fry the sandwich and it includes banana slices and bacon. ©