Waffle

Before I forget: Grocery expenses on Saturday totaled €23 - more than in the past month but I decided to relax the standards a little. Which is just as well because I found out on Sunday that I'd lost 4 pounds in a week. The good news there is that I'm now back at the weight at which I ran the 4 Mijl van Groningen last year in time for this year's event. The bad news is that 4 pounds in 7 days, without any fresh changes to my diet (and indeed with less training than last week in order to recover from my latest running/walking adventure, is a scary amount of weight for me to lose in one week and may have had something to do with why I hadn't been feeling that great last week.

I didn't know that on Saturday but I let myself spend a bit more because on Friday, I had looked at my bank account and realised that I'd become a tenthousandaire for the first time in my life. my assets (cash only - nothing else I own is worth much of anything) exceeded ten thousand Euro. And me at only 38! Clearly I have a bright future ahead of me. Of course, on Saturday afternoon came a notice from the rebates division of the tax authority informing me that yes, now that I'd mentioned it, they do really want those rental subsidies paid out over the year 2009 back, and they want them within the month. That's a thousand Euro, putting my assets back into the four-figure category and making my membership of the upper crust very short-lived indeed. But at least, thanks in part to a month of enforced frugality, that repayment will be relatively painless.

Here's what I've done in the past few days to reach my various goals in the run-up to my wedding and emigration:

Emigration: I have looked at the requirements for a Nonimmigrant Visa for a Fiance(e), and started taking action towards fulfilling them. The proverbial low-hanging fruit here turned out to be getting a copy of my birth certificate, which I ordered online.

This weekend, I will inventory fully, sort the requirements, time path and budget into a format that is easy for me to access and read, and start gathering up the other documents. Compared to when I last looked into this stuff, the process doesn't look so hideously complicated, but I will need to break it down into simple, manageable steps.

Stuff/money: I have found a taker for my old, large drawing board, who is willing to pay €100 for it. That will go towards paying for that visa application. And the drawing board will go to a good home with someone who will take good care of it.

Health/excercise: I have trained my guts out on Monday and Wednesday with my running group, running at the highest level even though I'm out of shape. It was hard, but if I do this three times a week, I will be back in shape in time for the 4 Mijl in October.

That's it for now. Work starts in earnest on Saturday with the emigration process inventory.

It's actually been 2 and a half years since I wrote this post in which I griped about my bank, the Postbank, offering a silly rewards program to get deals on consumer goods with its basic savings account instead of an interest rate above inflation. 2 and a half years, and I've only now gotten off my ass and opened a savings account at ASN Bank (the product I use is ASN Ideaalsparen, which at the time of writing offers 4.75% interest and requires automatic saving so I'll be following the Pay Yourself First principle of personal finance). I'm still finalizing the paperwork and will be using their one-time offer to move my savings over before Jan. 2009.

I don't think there's any excuse for anyone even using a savings product that doesn't offer a rate above inflation (outside of situations where hyperinflation takes place, but in a financial collapse at that level, you're probably better off spending your money on canned food and firearms), but if I were to try, I'd argue that back in 2006, I really wasn't able to save much money anyway. I am now, though, and I'll be using that opportunity for as long as I manage to remain employed. Even in a recession (and even in one where trust in the banking system is suffering), I'm still better off earning real interest on my money than in letting it rot away slowly.

Some miscellaneous things: First off: there will not be a new comic next week. My 37th birthday is tomorrow, and my present to myself is a day off the treadmill. No deadlines, no accomplishment targets. I may or may not do any work, but I'm releasing myself from all obligations for just one weekend in my life.

Driving class is going well, though it doesn't always feel like it. My instructor is sending me into more difficult areas to navigate and is finally letting me pay attention to traffic. As a result, it feels like I'm stagnating, because the more difficult things I'm doing don't go smoothly. I find some of it hair-raising, in fact and come home from the class all tired and sweaty. Give me a stretch of road I'm familiar with, though, and I do notice a difference. I do now believe I should have done this much earlier. Not so much because learning ability declines with age (it does, but not by as much as people think; indeed, the biggest factor that causes adults to learn more slowly than young people is that adults typically aren't immersed in a learning environment), but because it's much more difficult for me to find the time and schedule the classes than it would have been 18 years ago. The cancellation rate on my classes is about 50%, because I can only make it outside ordinary work hours, and those hours happen to be difficult for my instructor to make.

Grocery expenses today: €21,10. Not bad, especially keeping in mind that I was able to buy for the pantry: various dried bean/lentil products will keep me fed for months, and I did the shopping while hungry (I had no breakfast foods in the house, which meant I had shop before breakfast) which is normally a big no-no. The general frugal advice is not to go grocery shopping while hungry. I overcame this problem by sticking to the periphery of the supermarket as advised by Michael Pollan and giving myself very little shopping time. Compared to the farmer's market, the selection of fresh produce was poor, but I got enough of what I needed for this week's meal plan (cauliflower korma, spaghetti bolognese and dal curry, each for multiple days) and probably will have to go back only once to buy odds and ends.

I got an € 609 tax refund, which is less than I expected. But I'll also be getting part of the nationalised part of my health insurance premiums back, which could well make up most of the total. If you actually look at your tax form, the actual income taxes in the Netherlands are pretty low in the lowest bracket or "box". Most of what you pay is for health insurance, which is a separate bill (and is topped up by a part that you pay to private insurers. Yep, it's a complex and expensive system, but as compromises between private and socialised medicine go, it could be worse). I'll be spending the refund on rebuilding my financial buffer, which has suffered a bit from my plane ticket and the cost of driving lessons. On the personal finance front, I'm also untangling the final issues with the rent of the studio, which I will be leaving on October 21. And I'm thinking of having another go at budgeting. I tried that in February, but I don't think I was ready for it at the time. Now, though, I've realised that my plans for the future will make it essential to save a lot more money than I do. Also, I have become aware of how much anxiety about money stresses me out. I have never had any significant debts, but I have no significant assets either, which means that it doesn't take much to cause my buffer to run out. Time for me to start dealing more intelligently with money.

For the record? Driving is awesome.

I just had my first driving lesson and I'm really glad I finally got started on that. It's a lot of fun. I must not be completely hopeless at it, because I was allowed to drive (slowly and awkwardly, and with the instructor keeping close to his shotgun seat pedals at all time, but still), to the drop-off place, over about a kilometer of road used by other vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. At the end of the lesson, the instructor said that while it was clear I wasn't eighteen anymore and I wasn't picking it up as fast as a person at that age would, I was doing some things surprisingly well. For the record, steering is going well, gear switching (it's a manual transmission, because automatics are considered bad for moral fiber on the European continent) about average for a first try, and the pedal work really needs work - and different shoes. The instructor recommended that I took frequent classes, two a week or more, which I agree with. I need to get everything into body memory.

American readers, friends and especially friends of Aggie's, are often surprised to hear that, at age 36, I can't drive, but that's actually pretty normal in the Netherlands. Several other people at the office don't have a driver's license, though most of them gave up on the idea after a number of lessons or failed exams - the standards are pretty strict here, and the lessons don't come cheap (mine is &eur; 38/hour). That is the reason, though, why I want to do it here, rather than in the US - because I'm not eighteen anymore, I want a certified instructor and an exam I can walk away from knowing that I've learned what I needed to learn to drive safely. If I get mad manual transmission skillz thrown in, I'm not complaining.

The cost is the one factor that bothers me though. That's going to have to come out of my savings, or rather, my ability to save in the next few months, or until I've got that license. Both my tax refund and the windfall from quitting the studio will take a few months to arrive. So until then, I'll likely be spending all the money that I would otherwise have have saved up for my emergency fund on those classes. It'll be worth it in the long run - even in a country where it's normal not to drive, a driver's license will make you more marketable, and it's an often convenient skill to have. But I'm still not happy about that immediate effect. I'd like the money to come from somewhere else. So increasing my income is once again on the agenda.