Allowances

Much like the people over at Marriage and Money, Seppo and I have individual monthly allowances. It works so well for us that I am rather weirded out when someone says that it’s controlling/harsh, as the linked post illustrates.

All necessities, household purchases, and bills are paid out from the joint checking account. All paychecks and random cash goes into the joint checking account. We have a joint savings account which holds a relative small reserve of money for emergencies and is directly linked with the checking account for easy access. We have a high-interest savings account that holds most of our money.

In addition, we have separate personal checking accounts, personal credit cards (with various reward structures), and a joint credit card. We put everything on credit cards, so that we can track out spending automatically, then pay them off right away — no need to wait for the bill to arrive in the mail, since I’m always looking at the balances every couple of days.

We spend our moderate allowances however we choose, whether it’s splurging for dinner with a friend (when spouse is not there), clothes, gifts, entertainment, whatever. It’s really nice. Since neither of us spends like a psycho in general, there is no resentment over individual indulgences, and neither of us has to justify anything to each other. And presents feel great when you can buy them with your own personal stash, so you can go nuts if you want.

Since most of our other expenses are fixed, we generally have a consistent amount of money left over every month which gets saved. We’d be throwing it into the highest interest loan (currently, the HELOC for the Georgia house), but since we are saving up for renovating the upstairs, this is all going into our savings account.

Anyway, how do you couples/families do your finances? Do you care to share? Are you happy with how it works? I firmly believe that different people need different solutions, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend our method across the board, but if you think you share a similar outlook on spending & saving as we do, I’d highly recommend that you give it a try.

Omphaloskeptical meme

So, I’m home sick today. I think my body was just tired of all the work and decided to wave the white flag.

When I’m home sick, I spend a lot of time free-associating. Since I had just finished reading How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time last night, Sassy was on my mind. I honestly think that it was one of the biggest non-person influences on me during my early teens. It gave me a vocabulary to understand my ideas on feminism and self-esteem. It showed me that there were girls like me everywhere that also didn’t want to think of other girls as the enemy and boys as the ultimate prize in life, that what I had to contribute to the world, not just in the future, but as a teen-aged girl, could be valuable.

And truly, I know how lame that sounds to anyone that was not a Sassy reader, but if you were a reader at just the right age, you’d get me.

So I was thinking that I’d make a list of the top five movies/books/magazines/tv shows/songs that had a direct impact on me when I was in my tweens to teens. Now, I’m not talking about movies I liked or my favorite songs; no, I am talking about things that actually changed something about me, whether it was how I behaved, who I decided were attractive, how much I wallowed in my room thinking no one understood me, how I decided to join a club or movement, how I decided to stop judging others, whatever.

Here’s my list:

• Somebody, song by Depeche Mode
• The Breakfast Club, movie
• Sassy, magazine
• The Outsiders, book & movie
• The Bluest Eye, book

I could probably come up with a much bigger list, but having to stop at top five really forced me to give it some thought. Each of those things has left an indelible mark on who I am. Or perhaps they resonated with me so much because of who I already was, or who I was on my way to becoming.

Either way, I am glad those things were in my life at the time that they were. If I were to stumble across them now for the first time, I’m sure that they would have a different sort of impact on me than they had, but the first time around, it fit a perfect groove in me.

Crap, now I want to add Love Story to the list.

Anyway, it’s your turn.

Reading others

I think everyone likes to think that they can read other people well. I am one such person. 😀 I just took a test linked from an article in the Scientic American that discusses the role of the ability to read other people:

We must understand “where others are coming from” not only to pursue our individual goals but also to facilitate social harmony more generally. Specifically, we need to recognize that other people can have thoughts, beliefs, desires and feelings that differ from our own — and that those thoughts, ideas, and desires can drive their behavior. This understanding in turn allows us to predict how others will behave.

As I love learning/thinking about people and why they behave the way they do, I naturally enjoyed this article quite a bit.

I also took the test that was linked, because, well, I love taking tests. 🙂

I scored a 29 out of a possible 36. I think they said the average was around 26 and that those with Asperger syndrome hover around 21. I wonder if there will be a correlation in results between this test and the one AngryChad posted from NewsWeek.

How do I not post this video?

Wazzup with zee cupcakes?

You may have noticed, if you subscribe to my Google Reader shared items, that I’ve been sharing a lot of cupcake pics. This is because Seppo and I are making cupcakes for Holly & Mack’s wedding next year!

I’m so happy & excited, yet terrified now because my last few batches have been utter crap. But I’m a scientist at heart and I’m applying the scientific method to cull down to the best process and recipe that I can learn. So far, I only know what doesn’t work.

Hopefully, I will made a few batches in the very near future that taste and look kick-ass, at which point I will post them to the food blog. Nothing has been that great so far.

Dun dun dun.

The weight of responsibility

I’ve been furiously searching for a name for my soon-to-be nephew. My older brother called me the other day and asked for help. I love looking at name origins in general (goes along with my interest in etymology as well as my interest in cultural self-identity), so it’s not a task I am not excited about — I am!

But man! It’s hard. I have two requirements from the big bro:

• It must be unique, but not so unusual or wacky that it’ll be a constant source of teasing for the kid.
• It must sound “strong”.

I’ve already had a list rejected outright, except one name, which made the cut. In addition, the ladies of the family (the mom-to-be, my sister, my mom) all are interested in a name with a biblical link of some sort. My brother is like, “Eh,” about the idea, but he’s not against it.

So I’ve been trying to do modern variations on some of the lesser known biblical names, but it’s really hard. I’ve been using the following to websites as my primary resources in research:

• Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager (associated blog here)
• Nymbler (this is also associated with the same person as the above websites)

I have come to the amateurish conclusion that the letters p, t, k, m, n, and x (when not at the beginning) are “strong-sounding” letters and that the letters h, l, j, r, b, and s are not, where “strong-sounding” is extremely subjective.

And no, I’m not thinking of your name and judging you or anything like that. 🙂 I’m sure whatever you think I am thinking of your name, I have never thought it.

Anticipation

Warning: lame blog entry coming.

I’m really excited about Rock Band for the XBox360 and Gilmore Girls – The Complete Series Collection coming out. Both are coming out in November. Arg, it’s only August!

I figure Rock Band can be our Christmas gift to ourselves. For the dvd collection, I am thinking that it’ll be the reward for another successful NaNoWriMo. Because these things come out in November, I will most likely not be able to enjoy them until December, since every minute I am at home and awake will be spent on writing. Hmm. I’ll have to figure out a good schedule to keep things sane. It’s also possible that I might push off NaNoWriMo this year for another month entirely. We’ll see how it goes. I really want to spend a lot more time this round on plotting and setting, and polishing the core story so that it stands up well and has a good pace.

Bye bye Bro-die

We took the little brother to the airport this morning. I was about to write that he’s in the air now, but having just rechecked the flight status, I can only say that he’s probably sitting on the runway in the plane.

He visited for three weeks. I wish it had been longer. He’s a good kid. He did all the work I asked him to, without audible (heh) complaint: help around the household, go with me to my work and help around, assist with camping supplies/setup/food/cleanup, walk the dog with me, etc.

I think we had some really good conversations. I got to know him more, not just as a little tiny tot in my head that I see for a few days every year, but the real teen-aged kid that he is. It was really, really nice.

I got to show him around to some of my friends’ companies and give him some exposure to things he might think are interesting, for now or for later when he thinks back on it. I got to spend time with him and discuss politics, current events, music, animals, and any number of other ordinary things, which to me was extraordinary because this is exactly the kind of run-of-the-mill ordinary interaction that I have never really had with him in the past.

And he’s got a wacky sense of humor. 🙂

Thanks to all my friends who were kind to him and showed him around! You guys rock!

I miss him already.

Whoosh!

I’m thinking it’ll be awesome to combine one of these dual-flushing toilets [video link — warning: autostarting video] and one of these grey water reuse systems [Thanks for the link, Holly!] to reduce water waste at home.

Sorry to blog about toilets.

Guest Brogger

Get it? Bro-gger. My brother will guest blog. 😀 Ok, Little Brother, heretofore referred to as LB, I want you to write a couple of sentences about what we did everyday you’ve been here. Everything from here on will be written by the LB.

Saturday, June 30th: Uh…… *Searches deep into mind* Got on the plane, got off the plane. Ate somewhere. Did something. Got renamed to Manuel Labhor. Ate with strangers that my sister apparently knows at a Japanese place, which had some rather interesting curry. O_o.

Sunday, July First: Went to help make sammiches for the poor. Uh… hmm… The civic broke down 3 blocks away from the prison cell home. My sister also made some cupcakes that were honestly TERRIBLE,(cough) I THINK SHE’S TRYING TO KILL ME. (cough).

Monday, July 2nd: Tried to play Arkham Horror by myself. Two hours later, my head was pretty much fully recovered. Resorted to StarCraft (yaaay). Saw Ratatouille and swore to get a small mouse and teach it to cook, along with a small monkey to ride horseback on my chihuahua with chainmail and a knife. What?

Tuesday, July 3rd: Ate Belgian waffles. :D. Passed out after continuous beatings. Ate some Korean BBQ with some other strangers O_o.

Seppo made some brownehs after this conversation:

Seppo: So I guess we need to get some cake.
Sis: … But I didn’t want cake, I wanted brownehs…
Seppo: ZOMG (horrified gasp)

Narrator: So the three set off to bake teh brownehs and fulfill teh wishehs of teh sis. By teh three, I mean one baked em and teh other two helped eat em.

Wednesday, July 4th: Went to the rotunda and listened and ate ice cream, and met with those strangers again and saw the Transformers movie, and came out the theater with some extra corny jokes in our heads. Saw mediocre fireworks and ate brownehs and mo ice cremies.

Thursday, July 5th: Went to work with sis, which meant reproducing bugs via childlabor @ $5 an hour (under the minimum wage >:o) watered plants. exciting.

Friday, July 6th: Uh… LOOK KIRBY! (>”)> <(")> <("<) Saturday, July 7th: Helped Seppo with the car. Sunday, July 8th: Worked on weeding the yard for $3/hr… for 1 hour… Monday, July 9th: Work. Tuesday, July 10th: Work. Went to feed some stranger’s cats. Wednesday, July 11th: Work… Went to a fire show. But not JUST a fire show! Oh no, it was a..(drumroll).. HORRIBLE fire show. Thursday, July 12th: Stayed “home” and did nothing… Nuthin. A stranger disguised as a cousin came here today. Friday, July 13th: Went foodshoppin in teh morning, ate at Dreamworks(r), went to feed those cats again, which I then found out that I had a horrible reaction to, stopped at Safeway to grab some Claritin(r) D(tm), got some Beard Papa’s and went to Malibu Grand Prix, and went home. Went to the campsite and after 90 minutes of a bitter battle fought tooth and nail with the tent, we got it up. Dinner was great chicken and potatoes and corn, and smores. Was a costume thing going on? ‘Cause there was this guy in a hockey mask running around with a red chainsaw and machete. Does this happen a lot? And I wonder, how did he get such a perfect shade of red? Saturday, July 14th: Woke up (due to Mobi) after not so great sleep (due to Mobi). Ate smores for breakfast, while sis broke the code of humanity by eating instant ramen for breakfast. More strangers invaded our area, along with bready goodness. And some “bold grown-up cheesy potato chips” which tasted more like “shy adolescent bland food-substitute recycled waste”… not that I know what that tastes like… Learned that, according to Apples-to-apples, that elephants are indeed soft. Take THAT wikipedia! Had stew and rubber-like bread for dinner. Sunday, July 15th: Woke up (due to Mobi) after Mobi-induced sleep. Ate and left the site. Stepped inside house door and collapsed after watching Meerkat Manor (woot!). Monday, July 16th: Woke up with a head that hurt for some reason, sat on the couch. Worked on some stuff for my sis’s new T60. Tueday, July 17th: Work. Now I’m writing this… thing…

I’m dumb, and my butt smells, like a butt…

— Sis

(bonus ficticious(tm) points for whoever gets the reference)