Knowing the Meaning of Enough

Continuing on the theme of destashing and decluttering, I have a number of beautiful Longaberger baskets that are slowly finding new homes. But because my primary purpose of the destashing and decluttering is income augmentation, I am constantly asking myself, "is that enough?"

Which brings to mind a quote I heard on WOW (Women on the Web) Radio on SiriusXM. The host was interviewing investment banker and philanthropist Pete Peterson, who told this story on himself:

Authors Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a party at billionaire Pete Peterson's home on Shelter Island. Vonnegut asked Heller how it made him feel that the host may have made more money in one day than Catch-22 (Heller’s most famous work) did in its entire run. Heller replied that he had something the host could never have, "the knowledge that I've got enough."

When Peterson told the story, the punchline was "I know the meaning of 'enough'." I like that ending better, actually.

This thought—the meaning of "enough"—relates to my situation in two ways. 1) At what point do I have enough whatever. Fabric, baskets, handcrafted mugs, shoes, clothes, … ; and 2) When liquidating items (e.g. selling on eBay or Etsy), is any amount greater than $0 enough?

For example, today I was searching listings for the Longaberger Large Gatehouse Basket Combo (meaning it's got a fabric liner and plastic protecter). This is a beautiful, useful basket that I'm not using. Searching closed listings on eBay lets me know whether the item sold and, if so, what the selling price was. If I bought a basket for, say, $75 in 2001, am I willing to let it go for $15? Am I only willing to let baskets go for x% of the original price? Is there a threshold price below which I'm unwilling to go through the busywork of finding a box, carefully packing the item, and driving to the post office?

Or, if my goal is income augmentation (don't you like that phrase?), do five items sold at $20 each equal a) $100 I wouldn't otherwise have had and b) freed-up space on the basement shelves?

If you have a magic answer, I'd love to hear it!

And in closing, I'll share my two most favorite recent destashes.

In 1988, when John and I were setting up housekeeping together for the first time, I bought some absolutely gorgeous Liberty of London polished cotton in a pink/blue/lavender/cream Sweet Pea print. I made a curtains and shams for our bedroom, and a coordinating comforter out of a companion fabric. I think I've still got the comforter packed away in the attic someplace. I had 4.5 yards of the Sweet Pea fabric left over. It's been rolled on its cardboard tube and has moved with me too many times to count since 1987. Two weeks ago I pulled it out, measured it, and posted it on eBay. It sold for $40. That $40 then funded over half the purchase of new drawer/door pulls for the breakfast nook that's currently being repainted.

The previous owner of my home had collected some lovely 1930s and 1940s lithographs, which I sold through an auction house in Cleveland over the past year. But there were two prints that were mid-century and inappropriate for that house. Their value, according to every art site on which I could find that artist listed, was $200-$400. But I have no emotional attachment to these prints. In an ideal world, they'd give me a month's worth of income replacement. But this isn't an ideal world. I placed them on eBay, two separate listings at $20 each. They sold for that amount to the only bidder. It's $40 I didn't have the day before, and it let me buy the paint for the breakfast nook.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes enough is enough.

Live and Learn

Regular readers know I've lost most of my income this summer and am unsuccessfully hunting for suitable employment. To fill in the holes during this stressful time, I've been decluttering the house and trying to unload offering these items to deserving buyers on eBay.

One place I have lots of clutter is in my sewing room. I have a fabric stash that could keep me sewing for over two years with no trips to the fabric store. I also have dozens of patterns. Some are very dated, but a number are virtually collectors' items.

Earlier this week I sat down with a couple of pattern storage boxes in my lap and pulled out the patterns I was certain I wouldn't use again. Many were thrown straight into the trash can, but a couple of very special, expensive, and hard-to-find patterns went onto eBay. I didn't package them first to properly estimate postage. I just accepted the postage that a previous seller charged. eBay tries to make things easy for sellers, and I thought that was easy. Unfortunately, it wasn't smart.

I set the starting price at 99 cents. It was a very desireable pattern, after all, and had originally sold for $13.00, plus shipping. So it would surely bring in at least $5.00, right? Nope. It sold for 99 cents. And the shipping was set at $2.12.

I just ran to Walgreen's to get a shipping envelope when I realized I was all out of that size of envelope. $2.19 plus tax for the envelope. (You see a pattern here, don't you?) Plus the gas to get to Walgreen's. Now, as I print the shipping label, I find the postage is going to be $1.81. Plus the gas to get to the post office.

Can't somebody just hire me so I can quit throwing away so much money trying to generate income?!

Changing One's Perspective

If you're a longtime reader, you know I've been living in the state of Financial Fiasco since selling my Tucson houses at a gross and grotesque loss in 2008. That state was not helped along by the fact that I was commuting 120 miles a day, at 28 mpg and gas prices that spent much of the time hovering over $4.00.

I've always thought "bankruptcy" was a dirty word. I believe we as Americans tend to blame everyone we can think of for our choices and mistakes and rarely want to own up to our errors. I did not want to be one of those people, and struggled to keep my bills paid and my head above water, even when it meant withdrawing funds from my IRA and paying the resultant taxes.

Alas, my work assignments have dwindled, with a resulting decrease in income. After three years of struggling, I can no longer manage. About three months ago, I called Consumer Credit Counseling Service and spent an hour on the phone with a counselor. That counselor ran the numbers and said, "You can't do it. You should probably declare bankruptcy."

I was stunned. I was aghast. I was mortified.

I called a bankruptcy attorney. We spent an hour together and discussed all the options. When I mentioned I had a lot in the mountains of Western North Carolina that was worth $350,000 when it was transferred to me, he just shook his head. We parted company as I said I would try to figure out what to do with the lot.

One realtor told me I'd be lucky to find a buyer at $25,000. Just this past week I spoke with another realtor who feels the lot could be listed at $85,000, and that's what we're now in the process of doing. And I've started collecting social security from my late husband's account.

I called card company after card company, trying to get them to lower my interest rate from 30%. Each time I asked, I was told, "We're not offering anything at this time." The decision-makers at these card companies should be drawn and quartered! The way they're treating cardholders in this economy is simply egregious!

So after two months of not being able to pay the cards with the highest interest, I finally got into a debt management plan with Money Management International.

Each conversation, where I had to recount how I got to this point and list every possible source of income, was excruciating for me.

And now the first payment has been made to MMI and tomorrow they will disburse to all the card companies. This afternoon I called all the companies to tell them to expect the communication from MMI and to adjust due dates, if necessary, to avoid any late payments.

As I made each of these calls, I was hanging my head in shame.

Until about the third call. Suddenly a light flashed on in my brain. These bad guy card companies are not losing anything I owe them. They're not losing a dime on the principle. They're only losing the 30% interest that was keeping me out of my mind in debt to them. And, in fact, all the companies except one are still charging interest. And they'll collect that.

I'm not stiffing them. I'm just, with the help of MMI, leveling the playing field to where I can pay the bills.

Isn't it a shame, isn't it a pox on the financial industry of this country, that it takes the help of a debt counseling service to get the banks to charge realistic rates?

Where is conscience? Where is rationality?

To hell with the greed of the banks. I'm not hanging my head in shame any more!

A Quarter-Angel

I had grandma duty over the weekend, while my grandchildren's parents headed to a remote Pennsylvania cabin to celebrate their 12th anniversary with six of their nearest and dearest friends.

It turned out to be a weekend filled with laundry and kid activities. Lots of laundry. And lots of kid activities. Birthday parties. Ballet rehearsals. Play dates.

When I was stripping my bed on Sunday morning to return the Grandma Suite to its normal pristine condition, I found a quarter on the mattress pad. I wondered if it was a test to see if I cleaned up after myself. My second thought was that it was a sign. Let's see, what could it be a sign of? A sign that I'm a good grandma? A sign that I will soon get out of my financial funk? I shoved it deep into my jeans pocket and smiled, willing to accept either sign.

The parents arrived home around 10:15 on Sunday night, and a very tired aging grandma went home, where she found that her sweetheart had done all the laundry and the grocery shopping. Talk about Good Guy Points! His bank account is overflowing!!

This morning I woke up after a much-needed good night's sleep in my own bed. I swung my feet to the floor, sat up, and looked down. A quarter! There was a quarter on the floor!

I'm starting to think there are "Angels Watchin' Over Me", as the old song says, leaving quarters to let me know I'm on the right track to financial solvency.

Or that I can't hold my money!

They changed all the rules - part 2

And then there's the issue of money!

Do you remember your first car date? I think mine was to the Winter Park Drive-In, probably preceded by a fried egg sandwich and a chocolate milkshake at the Steak 'n' Shake. Hmmm, it might have been Bobby Wade. (Bobby, where did we tell my parents we were going? We sure weren't allowed to go to movies!) But I digress. The thing was, I didn't have to take any money along. Maybe I took a brush and a lipstick, but that's all. I didn't need to carry a purse to hold all the credit cards and cash and cell phone and pen and business cards and . . . . I just took my [at that time rather gawky] self.

Bobby had to have the car keys to his aunt's car and his watch (to make sure he got me home on time) and, most importantly, MONEY. Guys paid. Guys paid for everything. Girls never thought about where the money was coming from or the inequity of the guys paying for everything. My daddy never said to me, as I was walking out the door with Bobby or Jim or David, "Do you need any money?" He knew, we all knew, the guys would pay.

<Rant on>
I remember about twelve years ago when Tyler was in college and he had a girlfriend who was, to my way of thinking, a deadbeat. He, fortunately, had a full scholarship to college, but I still had to furnish his spending money at various times when he was between gigs. (Yeah, music runs in the family.) And this girlfriend, the barrista, couldn't seem to find or hold a job, and Tyler, being my son, was generous with her and trying to meet her needs. I was holding down a full- and two part-time jobs to support myself, provide his needs, and continue paying on my law school loans. And every time I saw something else she had "needed" that Tyler had provided, I grew more resentful. The pockets of Tyler's jeans were actually an extension of my pockets, and I didn't appreciate her hands digging down into my not-so-deep pockets! I was holding down three jobs, for crying out loud. Why couldn't she hold down one?!
<Rant off>

For the past 25 years, since my first divorce, I have been obsessed with completely taking care of my own needs, of not relying or depending on anyone. In all my divorces, I have walked out with basically what I had walked in with. There were no protracted legal battles over possessions or alimony or support. In fact, I paid child support to my first husband when we divorced, even though I was making a mere $10,000 at the time. Y'know, if I included in my online profiles the fact of how easy all my exes go off, I'd probably have far more winks. Fellas, I didn't get wealthy or even comfortable off the backs of ex-husbands.

But this also makes me very leery of moving into another marriage if there's the slightest shadow of a possibility of future divorce on the horizon. I've started over too many times in my life; I fear I'm too old to start over again. No matter how financially comfortable I get, what degree of success I achieve, there's always that ever-present fear of becoming a bag lady.

So back to the rules about money. How do you decide who pays? Do you opt for full salary disclosure on date #x and then try to apportion the costs equally? Do you determine that whoever chooses the restaurant, pays, and whoever cooks, shops? Do you alternate paying, but then if the guy earns twice what I do and he always gets the nights at McDonald's and I always get the nights at McMahon's — well, that doesn't work either. Do you try to be a little less obsessive about it? (Hey, there's a novel concept!)

Mr. Match and I went to a barbeque and fireworks at a local resort on July 3rd. I tried to broach this topic with him as we were standing in line for our dinner. Of course my intention was to say, "I'll get this, 'cause you got last night." But when I placed my order and then turned to him, he said to the cashier, "No, these are separate." I was shocked. I don't even know why I was shocked, but there it was. There was the sense that I should have just kept my mouth shut and let things work themselves out. That maybe I had offended him.

We haven't discussed it since. I try to occasionally ask, "Can I take you out to dinner?" Or I try to make sure I buy groceries and cook on a regular basis to shoulder a part of the burden. (And those of you reading this who know me well know that I pride myself on not cooking, that I laughingly brag about collecting husbands who cook rather than cooking myself. "Only 24 hours in the day and I'd rather spend them slaving over a hot sewing machine than a hot stove.")

I don't know the answer. I don't know the best way to handle it. I just know somebody changed all the rules and it's a whole new world out there!

(And a thank you to Tyler for tonight. He and Jaci invited me to join the babies and them for dinner at a local restaurant because tonight's storm had blown out their power. When the bill came, he graciously said, "He with the fewest mortgages wins." That would not be me, who made three mortgage payments last week!)