I cringed as my phone rang at work. It was a call from a colleague, Larry, who has an amazing ability to suck time and air from any situation.

“Hey, what computer is 172.168.00.55? Is it important?”

That’s the LDAP, our directory server, the most important computer in the place. Why do you ask?

“Someone left a page up in here and it’s down.”

Someone left a page up in here and it’s down. I don’t understand what that means.

“I’m in the office and there’s a screen up with a bunch of of computers on it and they all have green dots except that one, it has a red dot and says ‘not connected’.”

I’m like, you’re freaking kidding me, right. That’s like saying all the stereo equipment is working except for the CD player that’s not plugged into the wall. Nothing is really wrong, you just have to plug that one in if you want to see its status.

But the sowing of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD)… or Drama, is some people’s default reaction. It puts others off their footing. It creates an imaginary smoke screen. It is a practice so common place in our culture and media it amazes and almost entertains me.

The same thing can happen with our finances, both on the income and the expense side of things. I certainly have been guilty of using drama to get my way in the past:

“With the rattle in the door, the big 150,000 mile service coming up and the tire tread showing on the front, that car is falling apart! I just don’t feel safe in it anymore. We should start looking for a more reliable car.”

How many of us have been guilty of that. Fix the freaking car. Remove the drama and we’re left with a rattle that doesn’t matter, a service due anyway and two new tires. The rest is just drama; FUD.

“I would pay that debt off, but the smart thing is to hoard our money right now. Look around. The economy is failing. Unemployment is at a record high. I know a guy who got fired just last week!”

Really. And you’re sitting there with $7,000 in the bank, a $5,000 car loan and no indication at all that your job is in jeopardy. If you had a paid-for car and $2,000 in the bank would you borrow $5,000 on the car to stick in the bank? Calm down. Pay the freaking car off.

Drama justifying a fear-based decision. We are funny creatures, aren’t we?

Hanging up on the call and shaking my head, I remind myself to speak clearly and honestly without hidden agendas both at work and home. To check my motives.

Life with a plan, clear goals, working together with a loving spouse — these things are the antidote.

Spare the drama. Sow no FUD.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 7 comments

Every village needs an idiot and today I guess I’m it.

You know those times when you think you’re being nice, but it turns out you’re just lying for someone else? Compound that with a fat slice of Stupid and you’re going to end up owing someone money.

Just like me, the village idiot. (Can you tell I’m not proud of what I’m about to tell you yet? I really can be more self-deprecating. Truly, I can.)

It begins when we did our taxes two years ago. Our kids were in daycare then. If you haven’t had the pleasure of daycare let me tell you, in addition to the petri dish of germs you invite into your life you will be truly amazed at how much it costs. Our kids went only part-time, but nonetheless we spent nearly $11,000 in daycare that year.

Tax time rolled around and I asked our provider for her tax ID number which she happily gave me along with a seemingly innocuous request, “Please just claim $6,000 for the year; it’s the max they allow anyway.”

In retrospect it seems so clear: we were being asked to lie for someone else. Why reason left me is a mystery, but that’s what I did. I claimed we spent $6,000 instead of $11,000.

Now here comes Stupid; are you ready?

Five thousand was paid for from a pre-tax flexible spending account for dependent care thus not reducing our taxable income by that amount… and I didn’t catch that. Guess who did?

Yep, the bill from Uncle Sam just arrived. Had I kept things clean and simple — and honest — this month’s debt snowball payment would not be paying back-taxes. Arg!

It’s not the end of the world, it’s just one month’s snowball, but I feel dirty knowing that I look either very dishonest or very dumb in someone’s eyes. I suppose the truth is I am both.

The nice thing about being an idiot? If it’s painful enough, you’ll never do it again.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 10 comments

Every time I watch a newly-married couple smoosh cake into each other’s face at their reception I have this uneasy feeling of something being wrong. When The Wife and I married we were giddy, ridiculously happy, and yet civilized about the darned cake eating thing. There was no smooshing.

Sadly, something was still wrong and I think even then I felt an uneasiness. I didn’t know what it was until nine years later. Nine years and more than $10,000 in accumulated overdraft fees.

Once again: more than $10,000 in overdraft fees in nine years.

The “something” we didn’t fix until this past February was part laziness, part Status Quo, and mostly dumb. We kept our separate checking accounts from our single days.

Having two checking accounts meant a lot of things for our finances and for our marriage that I see clearly now.

First, communication about finances was stifled or downright avoided. It was simply easy not to discuss the bills. Second, the person earning less felt consciously or unconsciously disenfranchised when it came to purchasing decisions. Worst of all, it enabled the hiding of spending and dishonesty to each other and to ourselves about our financial state.

For a time I was the one who paid the bills. The Wife would transfer most of her check to my account and I would do the creative shuffle every month to make sure almost everything was paid and I had plenty of play money. It took a couple of years of that foolishness and a pant-load of bounced checks before we gave The Wife the responsibility of paying the bills. I would transfer most of my check to her account and she would perform the monthly Quicken-mating-dance that eventually led to the same outcome.

All of it came with resentment, guilt and the underlying current of fear that results from living life sans safety net.

It should not be amazing at all that living life without a plan leads to a pile of poop no matter who is holding the reigns. Sometimes we would go for 4 or 5 months without an overdraft on one account only to bung it up royally on the other one. The pure genius, of course, being that we were actually paying monthly fees on both accounts as well. Like I said, dumb.

When we finally woke up, paired our banking down and got on a written plan our lives changed. Personally and financially we are better people now.

The monthly communication about money and the commitment that piece of paper brings has affected our marriage in every way. Not only are we kicking the crap out of our debt (I’ll do a six month update with real numbers soon), but since February we have not overdrawn our one-and-only checking account at all.

Not once.

I am not saying the way we have done it is right for everyone, but boy is it right for us. If you are on the fence about sharing a checking account with your spouse I challenge you to look seriously at the reasons why. It takes more commitment, more communication and a small amount of time to do a written plan every month, but the results are stunning. $10,000 stunning in our case.

Then again, some people actually like the whole cake-in-the-face thing.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 5 comments

An odd conversation sprung up last week that got me thinking about value versus miserness. The term “conversation” is probably incorrect as I stopped responding once I realized the other person was just out to pick a fight, but it made me question why I am so happy to pay for somethings and not for others.

All around us we are bombarded with very sophisticated marketing that gets us to spend our money — often times on things we could do well without. Sometimes, though, we seek out a service or goods that we want or need; i.e. something with intrinsic value to us and I am amazed when another person is simply unwilling to pay for it. The Entitlement Gene is evolving rapidly in our culture.

Some people seem to actually believe that if one person got something for one price then by-golly everyone else better be able to get it at that price (or better) from now until the end of time, amen.

Case-in-point: an event I wanted to see was nationally simulcast a couple of weeks ago. It was available free on cable television, at local churches and businesses, terrestrial radio and streamed by some stations online. It was also re-broadcast on cable television several times in the days following the original event.

This week the publisher made it available online. Two dollars for a single viewing or eight dollars to download it to keep. The download agreement also includes the right to make unlimited copies to share with others.

I was publicly and personally called “stupid” in all-capital letters for being willing to pay for the download. While that does entertain me, I was also amazed by it.

Forget for a moment about things like production costs, download bandwidth and storage hardware. This was a program I wanted to see for its content. Am I willing to pay to see and potentially share information I find valuable even though I could have seen it for free?

Absolutely.

Has most of America decided that media content is a right we are all entitled to regardless of its publisher’s rights? Or maybe since so much of it is truly mindless and without value everything should be free to make up for the time we waste on the utter garbage.

To offer another perspective; if a car mechanic were to open in my town that did all their work for free, would I take our cars there? What about a surgeon who did everything gratis? No thanks.

What about a photographer selling prints of his pictures? You could have gotten up and watched the sunrise for free, right?

Things have the value we assign them. At the end of the day goods and services of exceptional nature have exceptional value. I guess a certain demographic will deem me STUPID for paying for some things, but I encourage everyone to be willing to pay for the things you find exceptional.

If no one is willing to pay for value, what are we left with? Money? Perhaps…

but nothing worth spending it on.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 6 comments

There is a moment in the Polar Express, after a movieful of skepticism, when The Boy holds a bell from Santa’s sleigh in his hand, gives it a shake and finally hears its jingle. It is the wonder immediately following the birth of belief. Whether it’s the spirit of Santa Claus, true love, or a working written budget, there is magic in the moment where one believes.

This week marks the end of our second month on a written budget. Budget committee meetings are getting easier. Communication between The Wife and me is better than ever. I am starting to look back on how we lived the first ten years of our married financial life with regret and awe.

Even the day The Wife came home from the grocery store with a receipt that read $120 when we had budgeted $60 for groceries can’t compare to life without a plan (I’ll let her write about that one if she wants to).

My moment of belief came last Sunday night at FPU class when the coordinater asked if anyone had a milestone to share with the rest of class. The Wife’s hand went up and I looked at her with raised eyebrows. I had no idea what she was about to say. We hadn’t paid off anything new, gotten any new income, or had anything financial happen that I could think of.

“We are sending $1,000 to our smallest debt this month!”, she said. What? We are?

I pulled out the budget, which I originally wrote, mind you, and she was right. I hadn’t even registered it. Earn as much as possible, allocate everything one must, squeeze out the fat, then put the rest on the smallest debt, right? That’s what we did, however emotionally I hadn’t connected with the numbers that were on that paper.

Everything is current. Everything. The mortage for April was paid on time (haven’t done that in months), minimums are paid on all debts, and we are sending $1,000 extra to the smallest one.

Holy crap.

This stuff isn’t a joke. It’s not a myth. It’s not even really magical, although today I feel like it is. Living financially on-paper, on-purpose in lock-step with one’s spouse can be done, and the peace when I go to bed at night is tangible.

I think I can hear that bell jingle, my friends. I really do.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 6 comments

Best friend, Jon, once asked me if the detention I got was worth it after a particularly good quip that exploded laughter from my seventh grade English class. I wasn’t always that successful. Like the time I pulled the chair out from under Christy T. in the sixth grade and she fell on her bottom. Off to the Principal’s office for that one.

Nonetheless, whether appropriate or not, I’ve always been comfortable speaking up in a classroom setting.

This past Sunday The Wife and I started Dave Ramsey’s thirteen-week Financial Peace University class at a local church. We debated about attending, feeling as though we were motivated and making progress on our own without spending another $100 on a class plus the commitment every Sunday night and potential babysitting charges.

A week before the class’ first night The Wife went to an orientation and decided this was definitely for us. In addition to the philosophies on finances, debt and savings that we were already coming to believe in so fervently, the class offered additional materials (a new book, envelope system, 13 audio cds) and, more importantly, weekly accountability to a roomful of people.

A roomful of strangers, yes, but if we commit to honesty with each other, I think the next thirteen weeks will ingrain a totally new pattern of behavior in both of us.

Halfway through Sunday’s class we were asked to stand in turn and introduce ourselves, say why we were there and what we hoped to learn. The dozen people before us gave very polite and text-book answers to much somber head-nodding.

This would never do, I thought.

Old habits kicked in as our turn came and I stood, stated our names and announced “We are in a Metric Butt-load of debt and live in a house we can barely afford!”

Once the laughter died down the room felt very different. The Wife chimed in saying her parents never spoke of money or taught its use. The rest of the introductions were less formal and more personal with several people referring back to what The Wife or I said with a smile in our direction.

Maybe they were just laughing at my public pot-stirring, but I’d like to think they were glad someone opened up the honesty bag and dumped a steaming pile of it out for everyone to see.

Either way, I’m not sorry to have spoken up.

To this day, however, I am sincerely sorry about Christy’s bum and sincerely hope she has totally forgotten me.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 3 comments