jenk

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."
-- Charles Dickens in David Copperfield

lisakit posted a question about "The Secret". My reply noted the sort of folks I thought it was targeting (hint: have disposable income*) ~ but that for someone whose life is really not working, more practical advice would likely be more useful.

Some books I came up with for examples were:

1. Leaving Home Survival Guide. Finding an apartment, fixing it up, cleaning it, negotiating with landlords, roommates, bosses, coworkers, and the government, and a few kitchen basics.
   
2. Everything Women Always Wanted to Know About Cars (But Didn't Know Who To Ask). What's really up under the hood, how to check the fluids & change the oil - and why those are useful things.
   
3. Real Life 101: A Guide To Stuff That Actually Matters. I was looking for another "basic life skills", and this one includes finding a job, an apartment, health care, transportation, and so on.
   
4. Job Hunting for Dummies. If you what you've done in the past isn't working for you, it doesn't hurt to try....
   
5. Cooking Basics for Dummies. The goal is to learn enough that you can eat in without giving yourself scurvy or ptomaine poisoning.
   
6. Personal Finance for Dummies. Figuring out what you have, what to do with it, and how to take care of it. (This book was my main guide for getting out of debt, actually.)
   
7. Unofficial Guide to Beating Debt. This gets more in detail on dealing with debt - including negotiating with creditors and when (and when not) to go through bankruptcy.
   
8. Spend Well, Live Rich: How to Get What You Want with the Money You Have. It's all about using your head. On clothes: "If it's on your ass, it's not an asset!" On dating: "It's okay to say: 'Honey, I love you and everything, but if you need money, ask your mama.'" In general: "Is this a need or is it a want?" and "Enough is enough."
   
9. The Complete Tightwad Gazette. The tagline of the newsletter was "Promoting thrift as a viable alternative lifestyle", but it's really about cutting down where you want to so that you can splurge on the things you really want - in the author's case, a big, old-fashioned house with attached barn and six kids.

Moving a bit up Maslow's heirarchy, there's:

10. The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex. From anatomy, communication, & masturbation to outercourse & intercourse to fantasies & bdsm, this book covers the stuff that should be taught everywhere.
    
11. Women and the Blues as a general help-me-get-unstuck book.
    
12. For pregnancy and motherhood, I'd suggest the Girlfriends' Guide series.

I've read most of these; the others (3, 4, 5, & 7) look good from Amazon's info. Any thoughts on other books along this line? What would you give to someone moving out on her own, or want to throw at your unemployable cousin, or have helped you to get yourself together?

*Enough to buy a book. Doesn't need to be more.

Today was the recheck-with-a-fresh-mind. I also made use of an online version of TurboTax, which had pros & cons. ( details )

The Bottom Line: We owe $1.

I remember Mom saying, "Well, when you're a grown-up you can buy what you want."

So now I feel I should be able to buy what I want, even though I know intellectually that a) I can't afford EVERYTHING and b) I don't have a place to PUT it all.

To-do: reprogram self for "Well, when you're a grown-up you can DECIDE which to buy." Much healthier.

from The Wall Street Journal:

In the United Kingdom, online gambling will be regulated and -- more importantly -- taxed, beginning in 2007. It is as easy for a would-be bettor to reach a gambling Web site in Athens, Greece, as one in Athens, Ga.

Indeed, the U.S. government's assertion that interstate Internet gambling is illegal has provoked an international trade fight. In March 2004, the World Trade Organization ruled the U.S. had violated global trade pacts by banning offshore firms from offering U.S. citizens some forms of Internet gambling -- notably sports betting -- while providing exceptions for U.S. companies that offer horse betting and state-run Internet lotteries. The U.S. says it has the right to ban imports that may be found morally objectionable.

(emphasis added)

There can be wide variations in how much property owners are taxed in various cities, King County Assessor Scott Noble says. ( Read more... )

The differences are a result of the public will and taxing districts. Voter approval of various measures — school levies and hospitals bonds, for example — account for about 40 percent of a property owner's tax bill.

Then each county can have more than 100 taxing districts related to its community services — water districts, school districts, fire districts, etc. — and each will want its slice of the property-tax pie.

That's why what a property owner pays "depends on where they live — there are different rates for different parts of the county," Noble said.

And because taxing districts can overlap, King County alone has 268 total property-tax levy rates.
Source: Home Forum column

So the property tax (pdf) rate varies depending on where you live. And the assessed value varies depending on many factors...of which location is a biggie. According to the state's website, "[t]here are approximately 3,300 unique Tax Code Areas in the state of Washington."

This is from a book by Jennifer James, most commonly known as a pop anthropologist/psychologist:

When I was teaching at the university, a talented young student informed me one day that she could be doing what I was doing. I agreed with her and suggested she enter graduate school. She said that wasn't fair; she should be able to do it without credentials because she was just as smart as I was. Why should she have to wait when I was already there?

James was professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington Medical School for twelve years; presumably this occurred during those years, tho it may have been before she was a full professor. Either way, I seriously doubt that an undergrad could walk into the job and do it just as well. Tho I doubt she thought of it that way; it's easy to look at someone else and think, "oh, that's easy" and not realize what the full scope of the job is. Also, a lot of people think in terms of "I should be given job X because I want it", not "I can do job X well because of my experience with ____ and skills at _____, as demonstrated by ______".

Dreaming is wonderful; wishing is okay; but "if only" is a way of saying "never". It is an attitude that focuses on what you lack, on what others have, and that makes it difficult to care about yourself as you are.

For years I didn't get how "if only" relates to making "it difficult to care about yourself as you are". Now, I think I do: if you don't like yourself or see your potential, then why invest in yourself? When you're thinking "if only I'd win the lottery" or "if only I'd taken that warehouse job at Amazon before it went public" then you don't have to actually DO anything. You're off the hook. It's up to someone else - parents, God, friends, the Universe - to produce ....

It may be that the extra money or status or whatever would not give you what you really want; and if you don't like yourself, working on becoming someone you like is probably more important. But

[if you are] clear that more money and status would significantly add to the quality of your life, then go for it. Decide what you want to earn or do; list the sacrifices you will have to make (time, relationships, other activities, personal change); and make a plan. Read, study, question, and start building capital. [...] Accept full responsibility for doing it yourself. [...] Any money or status that comes through others (male or female) has strings attached and trades that must be made.

I can remember reading that years ago and feeling exhausted at the thought. But I also found it a useful way to think through whether I really wanted to do the work ... or not ... tho the things I did decide to do, I did one step at a time ... it seems a lot easier that way.

Quotes are from "I Want Their Money, Status, and Security" from Women And The Blues

From a NY Times article on differences between women and men in college:

"I think women feel more pressure to achieve," said Christina Thompson, a political science major who plans to go to law school.

Right, said her youngest sister.

"In the past, black women in the South couldn't do much except clean, pick cotton or take care of someone's children," Lynette Thompson said. "I think from our mother we got the feeling we should try to use the opportunities that are available to us now."

They and many other women at Greensboro say it is not bad to be on a campus with twice as many women as men because it encourages them to stick to their studies without the distraction of dating.

Wow. I knew I didn't care about dating in college - and considered a school without greeks a bonus - because after school, homework, work, and general life management I knew I'd rather veg or hang out with a friend than have to fuss over my clothes and Act Nice for some stranger. Apparently the tradition is continuing, at least in some places.

In freshman women, educators worry about eating disorders and perfectionism. But among the freshman men, the problems stem mostly from immaturity.

"There was so much freedom when I got here, compared to my very structured high school life, that I kept putting things off," said Greg Williams, who just finished his freshman year. "I wouldn't do much work and I played a lot of Halo. I didn't know how to wake up on time without a mom. I had laundry problems. I shrank all my clothes and had to buy new ones."

Interesting examples. Personally, I would think eating disorders and perfectionism to be related to immaturity and lack of self-confidence. I know I lost a lot of my perfectionism when I decided I could choose my battles and set my own measures of acceptable achievement. (Not that I don't pay attention to, say, measures set by work - but largely so I can be sure they're compatible.)

This quote got me thinking:

[Ms. Smyers] recently ended a relationship with another student, in part out of frustration over his playing video games four hours a day.

"He said he was thinking of trying to cut back to 15 hours a week," she said. "I said, 'Fifteen hours is what I spend on my internship, and I get paid $1,300 a month.' That's my litmus test now: I won't date anyone who plays video games. It means they're choosing to do something that wastes their time and sucks the life out of them."

Ouch. Y'know, it has occurred to me that ripping ivy out of the back yard would probably irritate my carpal tunnel less than mousing....

And some notes on the "boys crisis in education": ( It's not just gender. It's class, gender, race, and probably six other things. ) ...and I've finished my tea. Back to work :)

In response to an observation of growing up in whitebread America - no racism but no other races, either

I grew up in a bit north of Seattle, what is now the city of Shoreline. When I was in school it was about 10% Asian, 1-2% black, and the rest white or mixed (and most of the mixes were white & Asian). The 2000 census reports it was 77% white, 13% Asian, and 2.8% black.

So. Yes, people of other races. But damned few, even in service positions. And those few I met at school were usually 2nd or 3rd-generation Americans being raised by smart, well-educated, frequently well-to-do (at least to my eyes) parents. Then I went to work at Microsoft Redmond, with its large Asian minority (new immigrants as well as nth-generation), almost everyone comes from one side of the IQ bell curve and most are being paid high-tech wages.

Results?

• I expect people of other races to be as smart or smarter than I and to have as much or more money.
• I do not equate "accent" with "ignorant".
• I do not equate "brown skin" with "accent".
• I did not pick up my mother's assumption that people of color are less educated or poor. This baffled her.
• I did pick up some of mom's BS, largely her discomfort with being emotionally close to people who look different (black, Asian, Latino, noticably richer or poorer).
• I am aware of racial differences. I wonder if I would be less aware if I had grown up in a more-mixed community.
• I wonder if my ignorance leads me to racist assumptions.

FWIW, according to the 2000 census info, King County is 75.7% white, 10.8% Asian, and 5.4% black. The rest is mostly mixed, with some Pacific Islander & Native American thrown in. In Redmond it's 79% white, 13% Asian, and 1.5% black.