Giving to Haiti

More than 16 years ago, my parents let me go on a week-long trip to Leogane, Haiti. Yesterday, as I watched the gut-wrenching earthquake footage on CNN, I couldn't help but wonder how a place I'd spent so little time in so long ago could still have such a hold on me.

At the time of the trip, Haiti was experiencing a period of particular political instability and uncertainty. Now that I have a kid of my own, I can't help but think that my parents must have been either very brave or very clueless when they let their teenage daughter venture into a potentially dangerous situation. But either way, they did, and I'll always be grateful for it. Being able to experience Haiti was a gift in that it ripped apart my limited worldview and reshaped it forever.

Yesterday afternoon, I felt compelled to remember my experiences there. My son and I dug through the stuffed upstairs closet and shuffled through several boxes of my old middle school and high school mementos. The Haiti pictures, taken with an ancient point-and-shoot, were attached to tabs labeled with my 14-year-old handwriting. The picture at the top was labeled "In Bord Mer" (though when I looked at a map this morning, I couldn't find a Bord Mer near Leogane - maybe I had the name wrong, or maybe the village is too small to find its way onto a Google map). The second picture, above, was labeled "Making the thatch."

This picture is labeled "At the clinic." It was taken at the New Missions clinic in Leogane. (The girl in the pink shirt and flowered dress is my best friend. She is now a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit. She's been back to Haiti numerous times since then, always bringing with her as many medical resources and first aid supplies as she can fit into her luggage.)

According to the New Missions website, the earthquake damaged the clinic "beyond repair."

I labeled the following image "Rich house." It was the nicest home in the area. 

Many of the people we met lived in thatch huts. Some of them lived in smaller cement homes. Leogane isn't that far from Port-au-Prince, and I can't help but wonder what happened to these structures during the earthquake and aftershocks.

Or what happened to the people there. 

Materially, they had nothing. Being young and optimistic and confident and sure in my beliefs, I thought I had something to give to them. Clearly it was the other way around. The people were so kind, so generous, and so genuine that they left an indelible impression on me. 

The children we met are now adults. They probably have their own kids. I wonder where they were when the earthquake struck. I wonder where they are sleeping and what they are eating and if they have water. I wonder if they made it through. 

Haiti's current challenges seem almost insurmountable. The people there need to know that the rest of the world is ready to support them, to lend a hand, to provide the resources they need even more desperately than they did before this disaster occurred. 

We have chosen to donate money to Haiti's Partners in Health organization, which is already on the ground and established in Haiti. The Red Cross is, of course, taking donations as well, as is Doctors Without Borders and numerous other humanitarian organizations. Additionally, some organizations such as the California Nurses Association are asking for medical professional volunteers to aid with disaster relief. 

Right now, Haiti is everywhere you look online and on television. That will probably be the case for the next few weeks. But I hope you will remember Haiti in a month, six months, a year, because the need will be great then, too. 

If you can help, help.

Dilemma: Go Organic or Save Money?

On Saturday night, I found myself staying up way too late to watch the compelling documentary Food, Inc. I could not pull myself away from it. The movie explores the current U.S. food industry, its (often unscrupulous and truly disgusting) practices, its degrading treatment of animals, and its influence on public health. Clearly, the movie had an effect on me, because I marched to the breakfast table on Sunday morning with a new eating manifesto for our household:

*No more high fructose corn syrup. Anything containing HFCS is automatically banned from the pantry and refrigerator. That includes the ketchup. And the wheat thins. And the tomato paste.

*All meat and cheese must be organic. We're not eating anything that contains hormones, antibiotics, etc. Preferably, we'll also purchase organic produce.

*If we go out to eat, we'll go to restaurants that list all of their ingredients in the menu and that purchase much of their food locally.

*We'll plan meals on a weekly basis and go grocery shopping once a week (something we've slacked off on over the last two months). Planning ahead will allow us to use our money wisely and avoid purchasing food we don't need and/or that isn't healthy.

We've always been pretty careful about what we eat. We don't consume many processed foods, and over the last year, we've started eating most of our meals at home. Because I have dietary restrictions related to GERD and food intolerances, we're conscientious  label readers.

However, going organic is taking how we eat to a new and more expensive level. Trent went to Whole Foods today (we're normally Kroger customers) and shopped according to the new rules. We bought some local organic beef for about $8 a pound and some organic chicken for $3.90 a pound. He also bought some nuts, fruit, veggies, broth, and cheese, all organic. The total came out to over $150, which is much more than what we've spent on food in the past.

What's difficult is that food is one area where you can see major savings if you make the effort. By checking the supermarket ads, clipping coupons, and buying products that are on sale in bulk, you can cut costs in a significant way. But the thing is, a lot of the food on sale is also the food that's not particularly healthy: sugary cereals, pre-made meals, salty boxed pastas and rices, and so on.

I figure that spending more for local, organic food is worth it. It's worth the benefits to our health. It's worth the benefits to our environment, which suffers at the hands of factory farming. It's worth the message that it sends to supercorporations that care more about the bottom line than they do about their consumers or the animals and crops they raise.

I realize that not everyone has the luxury of going organic. Sometimes, people just need calories, and purchasing a value meal from a fast food restaurant or eating a packet of Ramen is a lot cheaper than piecing together a complete, healthy, home-cooked meal from a fancy organic grocery store. But if people who do have the option to buy organic do it, then perhaps prices will drop over time and eventually allow everyone, regardless of income level, to buy healthier food.

Two favorite finance sites

I've recently started using two online personal finance tools that I think are worth recommending to others: Mint.com and CreditKarma.com. These are sites that I now refer to on a regular basis as I track our finances, debt reduction progress, and credit scores. Unlike a lot of other personal finance tools, you don't pay for these services. They're free, and they're easy to use.

~Mint.com: This site allows you to view all of your accounts - checking, savings, credit cards, investments, student loans, mortgage, etc. - in one secure place. After enrolling, you search for each account that you want to track, input your username and password for that account, and voila: Mint.com displays your most recent balance for that account every time you log in. It totals your net worth, calculates your average monthly spending in various categories such as restaurants, groceries, gas, and clothing, allows you to create a budget, and gives you a sense of where you might be overspending. 

You can't make transactions on the site; for instance, you can't move money from your checking account to an investment account, or take money from your savings to pay off a credit card, etc. It simply gathers a record of your assets and debts into one basket.

One thing I like about this tool is that Mint.com will send you notifications about your accounts - for instance, when your monthly loan payment is due, or when the interest rate on one of your credit card increases. 

~creditkarma.com: I know I'm not the only person who's ever requested her credit score only to get duped into a pricy monthly credit monitoring service! That's why I like this site: it's free, and it doesn't get all sneaky by roping you into extras that you don't need. Instead, it obtains your credit score from one of the main credit bureaus (keep in mind that the score will often vary depending on the credit reporting agency), provides you with a general interpretation/explanation for that score via a CreditKarma "report card," and allows you to track your credit score over time. 

I've been using it for several months now, and I haven't seen anything shady in CreditKarma's practices. Checking CreditKarma doesn't affect your credit score in any way. You can find more information about how this service operates here. 

Where we went right in 2009

At the beginning of 2009, I was hoping we'd end the year with a nice big chunk of cash in our savings account. That didn't happen, in part because we found ourselves up against a bunch of emergency expenses and in part because we decided to pony up the money for a potpourri of trips (to Destin, Chattanooga, Phoenix, and New Orleans).

That said, I think we made many good financial decisions in 2009. Because we did plump up our savings account early in the year, we were able to pay off our dental work (almost $4K between the two of us), medical bills (for office visits and a trip to the ER), and home repair bills (for a leaking sink, a piping problem in one of our outside walls, and a cranky air conditioning unit) in short order without accruing interest. We paid any balances on our credit cards within 30 days of purchasing (including all travel expenses). We put ~12% of our income into our 401K accounts. We cut back on cable and went out to eat less. We cooked at home more. Perhaps most importantly, we finished paying off our $22K in credit card bills and continued to chip away at our student loans.

2010 may hold some significant changes and challenges for us. It's likely that I will be going back to school in the fall to pursue a graduate degree that will open up more employment opportunities for me (more about that in a future post). I'll be cutting back on my contract work while Trent will be taking on an even more demanding workload than he already has. Our car is turning 10 years old and will soon hit 100K miles, so it's time to start saving for a replacement, just in case. As we make adjustments to our budget, we'll need to make sure we can still meet our other financial obligations, including our mortgage, our monthly bills, our health insurance premiums, and our school loans. My bet is that 2010 is going to be more challenging for us than 2009 from a money standpoint.

As far as personal New Year's resolutions, I try not to go crazy with those. Too much pressure. However, I would like to lose four more pounds (all that's left before I get to my ideal body mass index!), get outside to exercise at least four days a week, continue sailing whenever we get a chance to do so, focus more on the quality of my food (we've been purchasing more organic goods, and I don't regret that at all), and give myself a chance to get creative on a more regular basis. Writing here is a good start!

The Big Easy

I hope everyone had a good holiday season! We just wrapped up a busy month that included a trip to Phoenix to see a friend (for me), a getaway to Chattanooga (for Trent and me), Christmas with my family at our house, and New Years in New Orleans. I can't lie: while these adventures were hardly lavish, they also weren't very frugal. But were they worth it? Yes. Definitely yes. Traveling is my biggest passion.

We saved some money in The Big Easy by renting an apartment with our friends, who also have young children. The apartment was dusty but roomy and affordable; it was located within a block of the Garden District (which consists of gorgeous Southern mansions). We walked a lot. We prepared the majority of our meals at home; in fact, we went out to eat only twice (once to Gordon Biersch near the aquarium, and once to a fantastic Creole-Mexican joint called Juan's Flying Burrito). On New Year's Eve, we stayed in, made dinner, and toasted with a glass of (inexpensive) wine.

I absolutely loved New Orleans, more than I was expecting to. It now ranks with San Francisco, CA and Wilmington, NC as one of my favorite U.S. cities. New Orleans is gritty, artistic, mysterious, a little dangerous, multicultural, magical, and beautifully spooky. I feel like I'd need to visit two or three more times to get the complete NOLA vibe. While we were there, I had the sense that we were in a completely different country. Loved that!

Three months later, I'm back

Obviously, I haven't posted here for several months. The main reason is that we've had an insane number of big-ticket expenses lately, and I just wasn't up for talking about them. They drained our savings account and prompted us to re-evaluate our sailing goals.

Basically, we've decided that as much as we love sailing and as confident as we are in our belief that we'd love the liveaboard lifestyle, sailing will have to wait. I don't know how long, but for the next five or 10 years, it's not going to be a pressing goal. What we've learned is that sailing is extremely expensive, and the boat is just one part of that. Boats need places to live. Boats need parts and repairs. Boats have to meet certain government standards and requirements. We started to understand the oft-repeated assertion that boats are essentially drains in the ocean.

We've also learned that we aren't willing to give up everything to save for this dream. We like to travel; we like to explore new places. Are we going to stop doing that for five or 10 years in the hope that we might be able to do it by boat? Apparently, the answer to that question is no. For New Year's, we're going to New Orleans with some of our friends, and next June, all three of us are going to celebrate Trent and my 10th anniversary with a trip to western Montana (a special place to us, as that is where our son was born). I am excited about these excursions, and I don't feel guilty about spending money on them. I grew up taking yearly roadtrips with my parents; those are among my happiest childhood memories. Those adventures were learning opportunities. I want the same for my son. (We've been careful to pay for these trips with money we actually have.)

Like I said, we've had a lot of unexpected expenses in the last few months: dental work to the tune of $3000, a water-damaged wall, a broken sink, a broken toilet, an ER visit for a deep gash to the forehead, visits to the doctor, increased health insurance premiums, etc. etc. etc. It's been discouraging, but I think we're back on track.

That said, despite the obstacles, we're still on the right track. I am happy to report that while we've used our credit cards, we've paid them off in full every month. We still have a cushion in our emergency fund. We're now documenting each and every expense. Our credit scores have increased. Our school loans have decreased (albeit by only a small amount). We've been contributing ~15% of our income to our 401Ks. Trent found a new contract gig and a side gig, too.  

I like writing about money and finances, so I'm going to start writing here again. Some of our goals might have changed, but what hasn't changed is that we're still dedicated to pursuing financial freedom.

Living aboard - a question

Like many young couples (30 is still young, right?), our lives are full of job obligations, parenting, and financial strategizing. Beneath the surface, though, runs our desire to cut the literal and figurative docklines and go sailing. It's something I think about every day. It's what motivates us to work hard, play frugally, and spend wisely (well... usually).

We talk about selling this place in 3-4 years, purchasing a boat, and living aboard. From my landlocked vantage point, I get the impression that we should be able to manage it, especially if we either buy the boat outright or put a big down payment on a loan. As long as we have Internet access, we should be able to keep the jobs we have now, meaning we won't lost any (or much) income. We wouldn't have a mortgage or the house-related expenses, though of course we'll obtain plenty of boat-related financial obligations.

When it comes to money, I sometimes overlook the finer details. I'm often overly optimistic and fail to realize it until I'm drowning in unanticipated expenses. So I'm just trying to get a better sense of whether our plan is really feasible.

A couple of questions for those of you who live aboard: how much do you spend per month on marina fees? What do those fees include? And - do you think you spend less living aboard than you would if you lived in a traditional home?