Against my better judgment, I visited an animal shelter on a cold afternoon around Christmastime, pet ownership heavy on my mind, the whys and wherefores be damned. The cat ward was quickly dismissed–forever, come to think of it–because allergies aside, felines just plain freak me out with their sly, lithe movements and those piercing eyes, behind which could only exist finely wrought plans for my imminent demise. I was looking for dog.
The litany of costs slowly unfurled as I neared the entrance. Adoption fees. Modest, of course. Heartworm treatment. Affordable, if I chose the cheaper method, but a cool grand for more reliable treatment. Food, vet visits, grooming. Time costs: waking up to a clock not of my own setting and getting far more sunlight and fresh air than I’ve promised myself. The wages of housebreaking, paid in inches of soiled carpet. It was overwhelming to project beyond the initial excitement of scooping up a new pet.
But pets also offer that which defies measurement, and the promise of this pushed me through the door, straight into one of the most depressing scenes I’ve ever witnessed. A long room stretched before me, cells on either side with rap sheets affixed to the doors, the wretched inhabitants within representing the full spectrum of canine emotion, from tail-wagging optimism to motionless defeat. It was a doggie prison. Whenever an inmate would be taken out for a walk or heaven knows what, all the cells would erupt in noise, and I was convinced cups and spoons and shivs would start clanging against the bars, were opposable thumbs available. It was a kill shelter, too, so I suppose the hallway doubled as a Green Mile, even for the colorblind.
There was a brown Labrador I liked. A good, solid dog, which I later discovered also qualified as a very Caucasian selection. Well! The burden of choice, however, proved too much, because with each lap up and down the hall came a desire to adopt all of them, to relocate them away from this hellhole, so I did the next best thing and left with none of them. Now, weeks later, I find myself thinking about the benefits: the forced exercise, the social aspect, the discipline tempered by commitment, and, most recently, how a dog could handily serve as a makeshift security system. It all makes sense, really. Rather than call up ADT and pay some heinous monthly fee, I could put the money toward the most faithful alarm system of all. Sweet, dependable rationalization. You are man’s best friend, truly.
Even now, as my keyboard clacks against each tick of the clock, I can feel the flu crouched at the gates, its congested, days-long payload looming large. I thought I had escaped the bug, a particularly virulent strain that’s incited a local cacoughphony, simply by force of will. And by force of delusion, clearly, because I certainly feel its onset–the warm, achy haze that’s just south of reality and not altogether unpleasant. The plan is to retreat to bed in a last-ditch effort to fend off the sickness, so time is short. We’ve got to adjourn before I start chaining three verbs in a row, followed by a string of Rs.
When I logged into my 401(k) today, I was relieved to find performance had not only held, but improved as well, despite the grim market dip from earlier this week. It’s also the last time I’m going to sign in this quarter, because at a certain point you can fret too much over this stuff and, through one too many changes, shoot yourself in the face. Figuratively speaking. Now I’m turning to expenses and taking a cold, critical look at them, in what may be the most difficult part of this financial revamp yet.
Apparently more than half of my January expenses was lavished on entertainment, specifically the pursuit of purchased media. Half. This is absurd, whether you view it within or without a recession, and it’s a habit nourished by a few things. I remember distinctly disliking the rental process as a kid, especially the rush to finish things and the subsequent return of materials, and likely this figures into the equation. There’s also the issue of momentum, where I’ve already bought too much and I’m in too deep. Part of me also appreciates the ceremony: cracking open the cellophane to get to the latest DVD, for instance. It’s probably one of the more ethnic experiences for me, considering the disc was manufactured in Mexico.
Naturally I hunt for the best prices, but the aggregate remains substantial, and the truth is media tends to be consumed only once, making Netflix the economical way to go. To shift myself to this mindset, I’ve committed to skipping the new generation of Blu-ray. I will not buy a single disc. Oh, I’ve seen the in-store demos, to be sure, but I’m not really incented to watch Touched by an Angel in 3060p with lossless sound, you know? I’m content with what I have, which is Touched by an Angel in 480p on mute, framed with naught but the sound of my own soft weeping.
And when Blu-ray runs its course in a decade or so, paving the way for flicks to be beamed directly into our skulls, I hope to have shored up enough financial grit to make the wiser choices. Frugality is in my genetic makeup. I know it. I just need to listen to it. You’d better believe Finances.doc is open right now and that this system will endure. It’s low-tech or no tech, and should circumstances ever necessitate the latter, I will track my finances via Etch A Sketch. Give it a fair shake, one might say.
Eight-and-a-half years ago, on a hot Chicago summer afternoon, I stood aghast at my bank balance, printed statement clutched bewilderingly in hand, the cogs in my stupid sophomore brain straining to understand how I had overdrawn my account. It was an affront! A violation of natural law. One solid year of highfalutin’ book learning had packed my head with trivia most fascinating, along with the ability to do multi-integral calc poorly, and yet I was hopelessly deficient at basic budgeting.
With a blank Word document sprawled before me, I set to task creating a rudimentary way to track finances. No fancy graphs, no clever Excel calculations, just plain, brutish text. Where reconciling a credit card statement may have elicited a jingly sound effect with a single mouseclick in Quicken, such accounting victories were instead celebrated with the word “RECONCILED” in italicized bold. That was the system, in a nutshell. It’s the same system I’m currently using, kept alive by a healthy aversion to modern, more technologically advanced personal finance tools.
I’d like to think I’m savvier today, filling up the 401(k), topping off the IRA, and generally heeding the worn contours of financial folk wisdom. But it’s not enough, and in one sense I’ve returned to that fateful summer afternoon. Investment cornerstones I took for granted, such as blindly shoveling pre-tax dollars into retirement accounts, can these days have all the effectiveness of buying three new cars and driving them straight off the dealer’s lot into a ravine. I’ve heard depreciation may occur if you plunge into a fiery abyss.
It’s time for a fresh start. A blank sheet. When I dove into my 401(k) account last month, carefully poring over each fund sheet, it became increasingly clear that nobody knows what precisely is going down. Old standbys, such as heavying up on stocks, rang hollow and only seemed to indulge a gambler’s fallacy. I needed an anchor, so I reweighed my portfolio. Half bonds. 30% large-cap. The rest in small and medium businesses. And absolutely no more managed funds, because the only thing worse than effing the dog is paying for expert dog effing. Performance improved immediately, but the first real test will be how this lineup fares after today’s government failout announcement. Either way, I’m now committed to being at the till of my own financial future, at least until the till factory goes bankrupt.