Animal Rescue: Franklin

It takes a village to save one cat.

Musings on Budgeting, Money, Debt, Life Insurance, and the Future.

This year has been bananas bonkers. I’ve been teleworking since early March of 2020 and while the situation royally sucks, I’ve managed to make the most of it by conserving money, losing weight, and exercising. I will say that I am coming from a place of immense privilege and I don’t know if I could have done really any of these things without my best friend to help fray the cost of food and for errand running, and my job for allowing me to telework, cutting out all commuting costs.

On January 1, I said I’d start my fitness journey and I’m proud to say that I’ve dropped 30 lbs since then. I’ve stopped eating as many carbs, less junk food eating, calorie counting and then adding in exercising when possible. I bulked up a bit and dropped a bit of fat. Damn proud of myself.

I created a fitness tracker where I could write down all the foods, calories and musings on how my week went. I added a weight meter and an exercise tracker. I posted weekly to keep myself accountable. I didn’t hide bad habits, didn’t beat myself over any slip ups and celebrated the victories no matter how small. When I hit my target weight goal, I’ve let this tracker go by the wayside and am now ‘coasting’. I’m happy with my body shape, my weight and am more knowledgeable about the foods to avoid. I may revisit the fitness tracker if I want to hit a lower weight goal, which involves tracking calories and foods more closely.

With Covid-19 raging, I realized that I could be on the knife’s edge to poverty and immediately everything I could do to pay off all debts. A few years back I had taken out a loan to help pay for expenses which was a terrible idea. The interest rate on this personal loan in addition to my credit card interest rates meant I was constantly in the hole and a metric crap load was paying towards interest. No bueno. I aggressively paid off the personal loan and then tapped into my life insurance cash value to pay off my credit cards in full.

I hated my life insurance because I was strong armed into it by a relative who opted to monetize her family and I was an unwilling victim, however 18 years later of paying into premiums meant I had a decent savings in cash value and in retrospect this worked out great because it meant I had a few thousand waiting to be used. It got me thinking about how I wanted to use my funds in the future, and how to best grow it out. I started talking to a life insurance agent since my aunt no longer works for the company and he very patiently explained how the insurance policy works, where the money goes and how best to progress. Long story short, I moved toward an Indexed Universal Life policy where I plan on dumping all excess cash into it. The way I see it, since I have no credit card debt (really no debt any more), I can shovel the $500 monthly payments that would have gone to the credit card and instead into the insurance policy where it’ll compound interest. In the future, if I am able to keep up with it, the cash value will be enough to pay for a down payment on a house or condo. Dare to dream. But at least it’s on the radar.

Since I’m starting fresh in most ways, I was motivated to track my expenses and begin aggressively saving. I knew I wanted a way to enter in data to populate a spreadsheet that then collated itself and found a really helpful Youtube video on how to set it up. I didn’t want to get buried in data so this Google Forms option helped navigate easily and while there was a bit of prep work, the end result means all I have to do is enter in the date, check the correct category and amount spent. The data gets added to a Google Sheet and in the next page collates the data into the various categories. Pretty rad.

But this was just the start. I wanted to track liquidity should I ever need to tap into an emergency fund. I found videos on how to create and manage sinking funds and I like the idea of incorporating it into the Google Sheet so I can earmark monthly amounts to various different goals, such as a new phone, a weaving loom, expensive leather purchase. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of having multiple bank accounts to handle cash so this earmark system kept things very tidy.

Doing the debt, budgeting reminded me of how terrified I am of money. It’s a fear that I’ve always had and am less likely to ever make peace with. I’ve watched countless videos on people budget, debt snowball versus debt avalanche, Dave Ramsey, etc. I am VERY lucky to have a firm foundation to rely on should things go south and the life insurance policy that had ample cash value to tap into to wipe the slate clean. All things considered, my debt is minuscule in the grand scheme of things.

Moving forward I want to spend a lot of time looking at my expenses, not being ashamed of it, talking openly about it to allow others to talk about this shame.

Again, I count my lucky stars for having a number of resources to take advantage of. With Covid and my constant fear of homelessness, my goals moving forward is fiscal responsibility and saving for the next disaster.

New Addition(s?) to the Cat Colony!

When I moved into my new apartment, the first ‘neighbor’ I met was actually a stray black cat from across the alley. I was standing on the back steps, seeing how the alley looked and there was a tiny black cat traipsing along the fence. She saw me and scampered over. That was odd, and I guessed she was an indoor/outdoor cat. Nope, she was a stray, who spent her entire life on the streets. But how did she and the 4 other cats get to be so friendly toward strangers??

It turned out that there was 2 good samaritans who had been feeding the colony for years. One, a neighbor, found the mother cat and took care of her and when she gave birth, had each cat TNR’ed and released back into the alley. Each morning, one of the feeders would bring fresh water and feed them once a day, and track their general health. She would spend money for antibiotics and is an overall saint. When the first feeder’s health started to decline so the second one fed the cats on a regular basis but she lived a neighborhood over. I offered to feed the cats when the weather turned cold and I ended up taking the reins permanently. One neighbor jokingly said I’m not allowed to ever leave.

The colony was 8 cats each with their own individual personality and habits. Most of them are siblings with a smattering of discarded pets who found their way to the alley. Over the past year, we lost 3, one I fostered for 2 weeks while he rested from bite wounds and a rabies quarantine and he eventually got adopted, and two were put down from medical complications.

For a while I was wondering if the colony would grow or just disappear over time. Part of me wanted to have more cats present so the colony could thrive but I think it was selfish for me to think that way. But then in the past couple weeks, I noticed a tan cat magically appear. He’s super skittish, not sure if he’s TNR’ed as he wouldn’t let me near him and the other cats hiss and growl at him if he’s near. Last week, as I was feed them dinner, I counted 5, turned around and saw another black cat run up. He was tentative at first but smelled food and immediately warmed up to me. I was a little confused by the presence of the new cat and didn’t get a good look at him. He immediately inserted himself into the colony and ate with the other cats. Food brings everyone together.

TanCat doesn’t seem to know boundaries. Krampus (black cat) does not like social time.

The next morning, I went out with their bowl of food and he was there and this was the first time I got a good look at him. He’s a largish black cat with white socks and a funny white mustache. He has a cloudy eye and his meows sound like Ray Romano which is kind of hilarious. He immediately ran up to me and started rubbing himself against my legs which means he’s a stray. He has his ears clipped so I’m not too worried about him impregnating the other cats (who are also clipped) and he seems to do well with the other cats. This is the first week with him and I’ve dubbed him Franklin.

So the colony is doing well, vaguely back to 7 if you count Tancat and they have houses built to stay warm and 2 meals a day, come rain or come shine.

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Fitness Journey (and everyone's invited!)

I’m turning 39 this year and it’s scaring the living daylights out of me. Working an office job has killed my body in ways that is truly embarrassing and now I’ve decided to take back control. But exercising and dieting has never been for me. So how do you lose weight when you can’t sweat or have a 9-5 job?

Gamify your life. At least that works for me. I’m competitive in strange ways and if I can create goals that work like a video game with metrics that I can measure success, then I’m on board. There is no lose mechanism (except weight!) so I am not going to make myself disappointed with the results if I feel better in the end.

Goals: Lose 10 lbs. Then 20 lbs. Then 30 lbs. Go until I am at the weight I want to be at.

Rules: I have to count calories (for now it’s just calories but not sugar yet), but still eat responsibly and healthy. I have to weigh myself every day at roughly the same time each day, which means first thing in the morning. I have to track my habits which will serve as metrics for general well-being. There’s no timetable for losing weight. I’m not going to change the number of calories I eat, and I want to stay at 2000 calories per day which I think is good if I do light to medium workouts.

I started this on January 1. I weighed myself mid-day and found that I weighed a eye-opening 180 lbs. It hurts so bad knowing that I’ve let myself go this much. I decided that starting then that I’d do some pushups and get to 60-80 a day and other types of exercises. See if I can work my way to 100 comfortably.

Then the tracking began. Folks suggested that I download apps on my phone but truthfully, I’m rarely on my phone. I hate being on my phone except to play music and know that I’m never checking my phone at work or at home so this idea went out the window almost immediately. I instead opted to create a spreadsheet on Google Sheets to keep open while at the office and home where I track each item I eat and the number of calories I took in. If I bought it then I also included the dollar amount which will serve me for future uses.

This is the findings from last week. I added more data that I thought would be helpful, like tracking my weekly caloric intake and talking about my journey thus far. I want to celebrate the victories, no matter how small and still give myself room to improve. This week I also added some special fields that will automatically flag caloric intake of over 300 calories in a single item. I’m not necessarily trying to avoid those items but want to be able to glance at the ‘big ticket items’.

In my bullet journal I started tracking my habits as part of my self-improvement for 2020. I wanted to track things that I found meaningful and is a way to track the victories, or places I can work on. Those categories are intentionally limited to art/design, water intake, exercising, mood. The latter portion of my year was pretty dour and I want to be mindful of my mood during the start of the new year. The metrics are pretty self-explanatory for categories like water intake (1 = 1 cup of water), and exercising means I did 20 of some form of exercise. As I do more, this metric really comes down how active did I feel for the day. Did I knock out 100 push ups? What about other types of exercises? Some categories are without a set metric for art and design is if I felt creative, did I draw, or design something in my iPad? Mood I think is pretty self-explanatory.

Lastly, and the biggest shame, is my weight. I need to own it for this year. I have the starting weight and now I need to track it every day roughly at the same time and be held accountable to it. I can’t be afraid to look at it anymore and so I created another page to track my weight. For both the habit tracker and weight tracker, I added graphs because my visual mind likes to see the pretty pictures associated with my hard work. I’m not going to beat myself up each day if I gain weight. I know I’m working on myself in a good way.

You’ll notice there small triangles in the top right of some fields. I found that you can add notes without having to create extra fields which can clutter the space. If you hover the mouse over each item, you’ll see notes I added, which depends on the page you’re on. For the weight tracker, I included the exercises I did for that day. For the meal tracker, it is a daily review of things I found worked, things that didn’t and want I want to do in the future. This is different from the weekly review where I want to think back about how I did for that week and celebrate the victories and make new plans for the next week. The day to day reviews celebrates the journey.

So here’s to 2020, goals without the guilt!

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New Years Resolutions (a work in progress)

Welcome to 2020! I usually think about how I can better myself and this mental process begins late 2019. I want to be reasonable with my goals, in part because I need to not feel defeated if the goals aren’t met and honestly, I kind of need a win.

Categories are listed in my bullet journal:

Create:

Make one thing everyday
Take picture and post to Instagram
Blog weekly
Update website monthly

Save Money / Make Money

Buy less Starbucks
Meal prep
Take bus more often
Budget track
Cash diet
Sell more stuff/crafts
Grow savings
Pay down credit cards
Save $200/month

Self-Improvement

Meditate
Habit Tracker
Bullet Journaling
Exercise 20-45 minutes a day
Nap less

Think I can do it? Time will tell.

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Vintage Singer 66 Repaired with photos

Singer 66 has been fixed up thanks to Brother Vac and Sew (special thanks to Tracy for the helpful plug!). I ended up chatting with the owner for 30 minutes and he gave lots of helpful tips on how to sew heavier materials such as leather/denim and gave me a shim which helps adjust the pressure foot to step up or down while sewing. It's a family owned business and the tech who did the repairs was very helpful. If I keep the machine oiled, the owner said that the machine shouldn't need to be brought ever again since the machine is all metal. Below are pictures from this morning and the leather is 3 layers deep with some lighter fabric tossed in for good measure. It goes through leather REALLY well, and I'm super pleased with it.

This machine is one of the most common in its era and often you can find them in thrift stores for 20-30 bucks. If they're in good condition, getting them fixed up professionally means you have a machine that'll last you forever. Each one will have its serial number listed which you can google to see the date of manufacturing (this machine is from 1935 thereabout). It will only do straight stitches and cannot backtack but I only need it to do one thing and it does it extremely well. The wallet photos below is the first thing I sewed when it came home.

If you are in DC and need a sewing machine or vacuum repaired, please check out Brother Sew and Vac: http://www.brothersewvac.com/.

Leatherworking Apron

I realize how silly it is to want to have a leatherworking apron but I wanted one. This is going to be mostly comprised of turned doubled up canvas and leather pockets. It’s looking pretty solid but not being able to use my stitching pony really sucks since it means using more dexterity than I prefer. Strap has been made, probably close to 8 feet which feels a bit long but I figured it’d be better to be too long than too short.

Still need to get the attachment points for the straps designed, cut and sewn to the apron but it’s making good headway.

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