50 – 11 – Five Dollars

When I was a child, we traveled to Canada often; more often than most kids living in NYC and on Long Island. Our grandfather was born and raised there, so we would visit his sisters and their families as well as going on a summer vacation before returning to school in the fall. Not every year, but almost every other.

Every visit always included dinner at Old Ed’s Warehouse in Toronto. We’d all meet there – aunts, uncles, cousins. It was a fancy restaurant, and men had to wear jackets and ties. It was a steakhouse, and it was misery for my brother, sister, and I. Steaks. No hamburgers, even less chance of cheeseburgers, and absolutely no ketchup. I can still see my sister’s face when we found that out.

My husband and I continued that tradition when we visited Toronto before we got married. We visited my Aunt Goldie, and had dinner at Old Ed’s. It was different since I was ten – they had several sections of the restaurant – steaks, pasta, casual dining, etc. No jackets either. They are closed now, but they were a place that was part of my childhood traditions.

When I was a kid, everyone would gather on the street outside the restaurant in front of Ed’s. You needed reservations. We parked and waited for the rest of the family to arrive.

My aunts, Goldie and Janet were my grandfather’s sisters. He also had a brother, but we didn’t see him very often. I can only remember one time distinctly. Both of them had husbands named Joe. We found this funny. Two Uncle Joe’s. We also had two Aunt Shirleys, two cousin Sharons and more Davids than you could shake a stick at.
When Uncle Joe (Goldie’s husband) arrived he took each of us kids aside, gave us $5 in Canadian money for our own and told us not to tell our parents.

About five minutes later, Uncle Joe (Janet’s husband) took each of us aside, gave us $5 in Canadian money for our own and told us not to tell our parents.

The two of them shared a look and a wink, and the three of us each got $10 to spend on our vacation. I don’t know if my parents ever knew. We were Gerry’s kids, and he was there so often he was a favorite of the family and in addition to all the other ways, we reaped the reward of having a great Dad.

The current $5 bill. Front. 2016

The current $5. Back. 2016

An Addition to Gishwhes by the Numbers

A very important number that I left out of yesterday’s post was the amount of money I spent.

To start, our team does not put a budget on any item or ask anyone to spend any money. It is assumed, I think, that if you claim an item you will get it done to the best of your ability, whether you spend money or not.

Also, as far as I know, no one on my team used that it was a charity scavenger hunt to get free supplies donated. I personally am not sure where I stand on that; it’s a grey area. For me I don’t do it but that isn’t a judgment on anyone who does as long as it’s within reason and positive representation of the team and the group.

That said, this year we had very little money. My family wants to take a weekend away before school opens up again in the fall, so we’re watching all of our pennies, piggy banks, and bottle deposits.

The most I spent on any one item was $10.12 for item #114 – the team photo. Being in New York, I had decided on a soft pretzel with mustard at the Erie Canal, and the extra pretzels were to bribe my two kids to come and take the pictures. They also got a free trip to the playground behind the Erie Canal stone marker.

Including that, I spent a total of $17.76:

$1.23 for item #102 – putting positive messages on people’s cars in the guise of a parking ticket. (envelopes)

$1.05 for item #39 – using magazines, create a vision board. (glue sticks that we will also use for school supplies)

$,36 – for item #90 – Superheroes doing mundane chores. (red floss for Superman’s heat vision)

$5 – for item #29 – the printing of the bottle labels to sell air in public.

I scavenged coupons, post-it notes, empty and dried water bottles, posterboard, cardboard panel, Flash costume, Superman cape, index cards, Sharpie markers, orphaned socks from my vast collection as well as using my Twitter, my WordPress, and of course, my ever willing family.

At the end of the week, I bagged up all of my leftovers to save for next year.

The hunt isn’t just about winning, although winning would be nice. It’s about teamwork, camaraderie, using what resources we have, reusing items we’re saving or getting ready to throw away, supporting some worthy charities, bringing important information to people who wouldn’t normally see it (like stroke signs and the Syrian refugee crisis, and potable drinking water even in our own country), plus thinking outside the box and trying new things.

Fun and service don’t have to cost a lot of money to make a difference.

Take today and be extraordinary!

Lenten Almsgiving

While the use of the word Almsgiving has fallen out of the modern vernacular, it is still to be found in religious language and one of the three tenets to be acknowledged during Lent along with fasting and prayer. Many of us give money to our churches and temples and a variety of other charitable organizations, but how many of us specifically give alms to the poor?

In the nearby city, there are several soup kitchens, homeless shelters, a city mission, and poor boxes in a variety of church denominations. Unless we are involved int he day to day lives of the poor, we do not always see the needs. We leave it to our friends and neighbors. Much of this is without thought. Whenever I pass someone asking for money on the road, my first inclination is to roll down my window and give something to them.

Unfortunately, in this electronic world of debit cards, I rarely have any cash in my pocket.

One of the groups that is organized out of my church (and out of many churches across the country) is the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Even before I was a member of my parish, they helped me many times, including with money for a much needed hot water heater. When I went to them it was for advice, perhaps they had a suggestion of a reliable company to use or one that offered the group a discount. I had not expected money towards the heater even though we desperately needed financial assistance. We’re one of hundreds of families who request and are given help throughout the year with both money, food, and resources. Contact your local society or go through your local Diocese’s website for ways to reach them and contribute, not just money, but time as well.

Every year, despite our own monetary shortcomings, I try to give back a. little bit towards them.

Also at the top of my list is our local volunteer fire department. This is not necessarily an alms in the traditional sense of the word, used for the poor, but our local firefighters do not get paid and they come out to help with fires and medical emergencies whenever they are called, no matter the weather or time of day (or night).

Places where I try to send my money when I have it follow below. Please add your own suggestions and charities in the comments to make us aware of what opportunities are out there for us to donate to.

Don’t forget – you can donate more than money. Many charities are looking for clothes, household items, baby items, school supplies, and your time and talent. As the organization before you drop things off so you can make sure that they need what you’d like to give them. Items should definitely be in good, working order and be clean. Imagine if you were receiving this item.

Almshouses in Llanrwst, North Wales built by Sir John Wynn in 1610 as seen from the entrance at Ancaster Square

View of the alley of Almshouses in Llanrwst, North Wales as viewed from St. Gwrst Parish Church and the Afon Conwy

Random Acts

American Red Cross

The Trevor Project

Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

50-2 – Family Time

Another week passes. Looking at it in its minutia I’ve learned nothing. I’m sure in two more months I’ll remember something important from this time of the year. Time passes so slowly in the moment, but so fast at the passing of another week, or month, or year. My son will be turning 19 in another month. He was just awarded firefighter of the year. It feels as though it was yesterday that he was dressing up as a fireman and running around the house making siren sounds.

Our family has been doing a lot of family television. We eat dinner, and then settle down in the living room with that night’s program. It’s the mid-season and most of the shows are back. The Walking Dead returned last weekend, and Gotham comes back on the 29th. My kids get very upset when I miss a show and have to catch up the next day, like I’ve done the last two weeks Legends of Tomorrow. The first week I attended a memorial service and this week was another show I wanted to watch. Luckily, the CW has a great app to catch up as well as to watch interviews and previews. I wish the AMC app was that good.

Last night, we watched The Martian. My husband has been picking out new things for this year. I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing it, but when he put it on, I started to watch it. It was good. I was afraid that it was going to be Matt Damon alone on Mars for the whole movie. I was happy to see that it wasn’t that at all. I did enjoy it, and would recommend it to anyone interested in space travel, suspense, and action. It’s also funny and emotional – all the things you want in a good movie. I told my husband that I thought I preferred Apollo 13. They’re not exactly comparable, and The Martian is more modern, taking place in the future.I think what I found more compelling about Apollo 13 was that it’s history; it’s a true story. We know the outcome, and we still find it suspenseful and we worried along with the astronauts’ families.

Family time is what we make it. Whether it’s watching movies or reading comic books, preparing food or shoveling the walk. We’ve been spending a lot of time together. In the afternoon while my husband is still in his office working, the little ones and I are together with our tablets or our books, reading and laughing, no one doing their homework, and trying to get as many snacks as they can before dinner.

The kids are home this week for winter recess even if it hasn’t been much of a winter. I’m definitely not complaining about the weather. I can’t stand the snow, and almost never drive in it. We’re going to be full up on family time by the end of the week.

Unfortunately, this is also our low money week. The paycheck where we pay the mortgage leaves us not much left. We get by – we don’t use credit cards so we kind of have to work with what we have.

This might be the week I start the taxes.

I wish money didn’t make the world go round.

5 Free or Low-Cost Things to Do

1. Library

2. Mall – good place for walking when the weather won’t cooperate, window shopping, and taking photos for your Instagram.

3. Redbox

4. Use your Amazon Prime and/or Netflix memberships

5. Park. Yes, even in the winter. Everyone needs fresh air. Don’t forget to check your wind chills and dress appropriately for the weather.

Vacationing at Home

Times are a bit different than when I was a kid. Things are more expensive, kids are busier…parents are busier. There are divorced and single families, families with two jobs for each adult. Teenagers who work. We’re swamped. When I was a kid, I was pretty much guaranteed a winter vacation in Florida, visiting my family and going to Disney World and Sea World, Cypress Gardens and the Fountain of Youth. We never flew anywhere, so my parents would pull us out of school a day early, maybe even bring us back a day late and we’d leave at four in the morning and drive all day. We’d spend the night near South of the Border usually, once we stayed in Georgia, but there were brush fires and that put Georgia off for my parents after that.

Two days of driving, staying in a motel where you parked in front of the door. I don’t know how we survived those first floor, open windows, doors that led to the parking lot motor inns. We were sent to the office for ice, tourist information. At some point one of two of us were sent outside (to separate us from the other one) and we were expected to sit in the fresh air on the plastic lawn chairs that were paired under the big picture window that my mother always insisted we draw the drapes. Free roaming even near the swimming pool.

Travel – Money- Saving Ideas

Taking a family on vacation can be a ridiculous amount of money. Even when I’ve traveled alone and stayed with friends, it can sometimes be more expensive than I’d like.

Car travel gives you the space to bring more with you and save money on the other end. These can all be adapted to other forms of travel. The only difference (at the moment) would be liquids on airplanes. Check the TSA website for your specific airport information.

Starting a trip, I always try to eat breakfast at home. Whether that’s picking up bagels at the supermarket and toasting them at home or using up the milk with our cereal, it’s better than getting half an hour into a trip and everyone’s starving. Frozen waffles and home brewed or instant coffee are two other ways to save money before you leave.

Once you’re on the trip, if you’re traveling by car, what can you bring with you? Sure, you can pick stuff up when you get there, but it’s not always practical. I will bring a 12-pack of soda and a bottle of juice for the kids. It really is so much cheaper than getting individual ones out of the hotel vending machines. You can always use the ice machine, and most hotel rooms come equipped with a mini-fridge and a microwave.

The microwave can be a good thing to have if you bring popcorn for snacks or microwavable Easy Mac mac&cheese. Everybody loves mac&cheese.

Other snacks that pack well include Cheerios, pretzels, crackers, and water bottles. Cheese doodles and chocolate are pretty much the worse snacks. The doodles are incredibly messy and the chocolate will melt, even in the winter.

Bring your own shampoo and soap.

Don’t buy anything in a convenience store and avoid supermarkets for anything that’s not food. Stick to Target and Wal-Mart for what you need, if you shop at those stores.

Bring an empty water bottle and fill it up at the water fountain on the other side of security. If you each have your own reusable water bottles, you can buy a gallon of water and share it around instead of buying individual disposable water bottles.

Look around when you’re packing and see what you can bring instead of buying. By the same token, be careful not to overpack. Weigh out what’s worth buying.

House – Part 2 of ?: The Inspection

A quick note: I’m going to label these posts in numbered order, but that is not necessarily a chronological order or how they will remain when they’re edited into a final form. This way as you’re reading along you can keep track of the ones you’ve read if you’re interested in that.

When the inspection is held depends on when your contract is signed. Our inspection was in late May. Remember in my landscaping piece (link), the outside looked fantastic. This was the naïve day when we still believed that the inspection meant something.

The Trials and Tribulations of Buying a House – Part ? – Landscaping

Late May.

One of the most beautiful times of the year is late May. It’s still cool enough to sleep with the windows open on most nights. No heat, no air conditioning. The perennials are blooming. It’s the beginnings of the greenery on the trees, the brightness of the flowers in the morning sun while we’re still getting used to daylight savings time and early mornings with sunlight streaming in.

This is also a good time to begin your new house buying event. Schools are still in session so you can check them out before you choose on a house. It gives you all summer to give your notice to the apartment manager; time to move in before the school year starts and a whole host of other factors that.

This is merely one part of our story. Eventually, this will be a complete and concise account of what we went through; what we still go through seven years later into our home ownership.

Our Most Recent Story

My Go Fund Page

Before I got derailed by plague, I was talking about posting a discussion about my financial situation. Right up front I will say that many of our early problems that we are still paying for are of our own making. Borrowing thinking we would be able to pay back and then not getting the amount of money we were expecting. Getting laid off with a child is an enormous financial situation and we handled it badly, especially before our landlord decided he wanted to live in our apartment and we needed to rent something for half the space and more than twice the rent. And then we had two more children, one of whom was completely unexpected. We have certainly changed our spending habits even though we are not perfect. We want our kids to have what they need, and yes, what they want when we are able.

The current problem and most pressing that we’re trying to stabilize is with our home equity loan.

When we bought our house, there were many problems. Many problems. I’m not going to get into those here because that is literally a book in the making. We bought the house and immediately replaced the furnace. The next year we replaced the windows, both of which lowered our utility bill drastically. We are still paying for the windows seven years later (although at an excellent rate.)

But there were other things that needed to be done that were above normal home maintenance, and so we borrowed money from a bank for a home equity. At the time we took out the loan, we had one income.

For the first five years, we were to pay the interest only, and then the rate would change to include the principal. We anticipated that in five years I would have a job and my husband would have gotten raises, and we’d be able to do this. But if we didn’t, it was okay.

The bank had said that we could extend the interest only payment for another five years for a $50 (but the amount might change) fee. We were not worried having that assurance from the bank when we signed the contract.

In the meantime, I became ill and did not get a job. The economy tanked. My husband’s raises were eaten up in taxes, house repairs, health insurance, gas for the car and groceries which had increased practically exponentially.

In the year before the bill was to come due, we were told that they would not extend the interest only payment, our payment would indeed TRIPLE (from $95 to $404/month), and I should look for a job. (Yes, they actually told me this despite the fact that they gave us the loan on our one income and I was ill with problems walking.)

When the economy crashed and burned, our house went down in value, almost $25.000 less than what we paid for it, $35000 less than it was appraised at when we took the loan.

I tried to get the bank to honor their verbal agreement that we could extend the interest only payments. They said it wasn’t in the written contract, no one at that bank would have told me that (I took notes, but it’s seven years ago and I don’t know where that folder is). I asked if continuing to pay the lower amount would benefit us; I was told no, only the full amount, so I used that $95 for my medication as my insurance had ceased paying for the year until my deductible was met (it never was that year.)

As it stands now, we’ve been sued (and lost with a summary judgment and possible wage garnishment* of 10% our gross income, which is more than the triple amount that we couldn’t afford before.)

We were refused the opportunity to appear in court. We would like to pay; we can’t afford to.

Now, we’ve found out that our net income has been reduced by $124.10 each month due to higher health insurance costs.

We are once again in our deductible period, and our co-payments, co-insurance and prescriptions will cost more this year when we couldn’t afford it last year. We were barely making ends meet as it were and I still owe medical bills for my children and me from as far back as 2012.

*As of this writing we were served with an income execution for 10% of our gross salary. What this means is that every two weeks, we need to turn over $194** to the sheriff’s department or they will garnish my husband’s wages through his employer (this is never a good idea – many people get laid off when these kinds of financial crises occur.)

** This was my estimate of 10% after taking out the pre-tax amount the company gives us for health insurance. It is semantics, I know, but the company calls it income, but we never actually see it. We give it all back in premiums and then some.

So, this is the gist of our story.

We know many people are in our position, and that there are many worthier causes.

I’m posting in this much detail and asking for the internet’s help once again. We’ve modified our first mortgage and hope that will keep our head above water, but with this judgment and garnishment, I’m not sure how we will survive.

We’ve also requested a reduction and/or a stay of income execution in the garnishment, but we’ve been denied everything else thus far, so I have no real hope for these options and have so far, gone unanswered.

We have a Go Fund Page, and if anyone is able to help, we would greatly appreciate it and so we are blogging our page and praying for the best. Good wishes and prayers are always welcome.

Thank you for reading and we appreciate any reblogs and donations that can be offered.

Karen/kb

Griffins and Ginger Snaps

-I write, and I have a blog because of course I do-

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