Furlough day 3: A saucy day

Today's decluttering was again food-allergy related. When I saw my allergist last week I got the final list of everything I'm allergic to. It took this long because I had some unusual tests done. Boy does it explain some things though. 

I already mentioned that I was allergic to my anti-depressant. I've known for decades about the cinnamon allergy. But what I didn't realize was that a common preservative, sodium benzoate, produces an allergic reaction in people who are allergic to cinnamon. But here was the big shocker: I'm genuinely allergic to aspartame. 

It explains a lot about the issues I've had with my eating disorder and artificial sweeteners. My stomach was always very irritated because the t-cell reaction I get can produce inflammatory symptoms for up to 96 hours after exposure. I don't think I've gone 96 hours without diet soda in the last decade. I wonder if it's part of why I inevitably binge within 48 hours of drinking diet soda. 

So anyways, I've gone a week without diet soda. I got rid of everything in the fridge with sodium benzoate. I also tossed the last few things that contained "natural flavors" or "spices,"  at my doctor's suggestion. Cinnamon and its derivatives don't have to be labeled explicitly in the US, they can just be lumped under one of those two term. I also gave the box of fig newtons I had to the homeless man by the grocery store. Apparently they have cinnamon in them. 

The rashes have been around for years. I usually walked around looking like the picture on the left. When I didn't look like that it was because I was wearing foundation. Once I made the dietary changes, voila, one week later, I look normal.

I AM SO HAPPY!!!

I celebrated by doing some re-cluttering, though. I found six cruets for a total of $14 and today I had enough time courtesy of my furlough days that made my own salad dressings. I am a salad addict and most dressings contain spices, natural flavors, or sodium benzoate. Ketchup apparently contains cinnamon. Recipes are linked below. 

From L-R: italian, ranch, ketchup, balsamic vinaigrette, Colonial Williamsburg's malt vinaigrette, honey mustard

making ketchup

I used to buy expensive salad dressings, like $3-4 per bottle and I go through a couple bottles a month. This should end up saving quite a bit of money over the long term. Not to mention, now I don't have to take all of these pills for my allergies and the stress caused by them!

More reasons to spend money on security and not stuff

Guess what? I just got furloughed!

The "company" I work for gave me notice this morning, so here I am at home, waiting for Congress to figure things out. In the meantime, time to declutter my life a little bit!

I've disappeared from the interwebs in the last month courtesy of some little health problems. It turns out I was allergic to my antidepressant. We took me off that and I tried a new one. I turned into a zombie on that one, so we went back to the one I was on before, just a different formulation. Surprise, surprise, the rash and itching came back. I got a fourth antidepressant, which actually works! I feel like the last month has disappeared into a fog of itching, drowsiness, and unfortunately, a shocking amount of bingeing. Turns out those meds really did help keep my eating disorder under control.

Happily, things are calmer now.  I get the added bonus of a few vacation days! Time to catch up on all of your wonderful comments that I've ignored in the last month.

Unfortunately it does mean that until Congress gets its act together, I don't have a paycheck.  For that reason I am very, very glad that we have an emergency fund. I'm really not worried about being on unpaid leave for three weeks or three months if that's what it takes. The amount of money we've been spending each month on crap has been slowly declining. Not only has that meant more savings, but it's meant that we need less income to get by. Hopefully this month we can live entirely on the Chief Engineer's salary.

Now -- to learn to cope with the stress of a furlough without turning to any bad habits -- collecting free stuff, buying things, or eating myself into an oblivion. I'm planning on posting some more things on ebay and craigslist, maybe going and playing my guitar on the street, reading some more, making some gifts I owe people. How do you keep occupied when you suddenly have a ton of free time?

Creating extra space in the fridge

If you've lived in a condo, apartment, or dorm, you're used to small fridges. I'm okay with a small fridge because it means there's less space to hide food. My family's fridge and freezer are so large and so full that food can literally go for years before it's unearthed.

But a small fridge is a little tricky if you like melons, or make large round containers of soup or casserole. What to do? Use your vertical space.

The two plates didn't fit next to each other. But put the one plate on top of the applesauce jar and eureka! They fit!

This trick can also be used when trying to get two bowls or plates in a small microwave.

Got any space-saving fridge or freezer tricks up your sleeve?

How'd We Do That?! Fun With Spreadsheets, part deux

I've tracked our expenses since January of this year, even though I didn't implement any kind of money plan until this month. The red cells are the times when we went over the budget that I set for August. I can't complain about overpaying on my student loan, though. 

Impossible to read, I know. Click the spreadsheet to make it big enough to see.

The first block of categories is the "necessary" stuff. The second block is obviously the stuff we would instantly cut completely if one of us lost our job. I forgot the total for the second block -- it's a bit over $666. The green column is the average for the year so far. We had the best month we've had all year, spending a total of $2433.47 on expenses that aren't our mortgage or our condo fee. I'm still horrified, as I used to live on $1000 a month (including rent!) when I lived in Philadelphia. But this is DC, DC, DC and it's as bad as New York sometimes. 

But I'll hang onto the success. It left me wondering what went differently from other months and helped us to stay under budget?

• I watched our purchases like a hawk this month. Unfortunately, this also kept me very stressed. So next month I will total up purchases at the end of each week, but not look at anything money-related in between.
• We actively focused on staying home and entertaining ourselves there. We know that if we go out to do a single activity, say, go to a movie, it ends up turning into more than that. Dinner and a movie. Dinner, a movie, and ice cream for me. Dinner, a movie, and a swing by the grocery store for junk food on the way back. You get the picture.
• We actively tried to cook more at home.
• I focused on making money this month instead of spending it. I put a lot of energy into selling things on ebay. I earmarked all of those profits for my student loan so there was no temptation to spend the money. Ebaying stuff was an activity that took the place of some other spendy activities I might have done, like going to the bookstore.
• I looked at each purchase in terms of how many items I would have to sell on ebay to pay for it. I haven't made much money on ebay and it's been a lot of work. Am I going to go toss the $8 I just made selling a beanie baby on lunch out? No, I'm going to keep it and put it towards my student loan.
• We did not buy physical objects that couldn't be consumed, except for one item. I had some old, ugly jewelry Grandmom had given me melted down into a wedding band. My hands swell horribly in the summer heat and I can't wear the one the Chief Engineer gave me at our wedding for a good 2-3 months out of the year. When the ring disappears each year, people ask questions. I don't like it, so I wanted something I could wear in the summer. It was $75 for the labor -- but the jeweler asked me to do some artwork for his store, and I expect to make about $75 off the piece. It'll work out in the end!

Next month will be much more difficult as I know we have over $500 in medical expenses alone next month. I'll plan for that in the next post.

What would you change about my spending habits? Happily looking for suggestions. 

Fun with spreadsheets part I: Budgeting based on satisfaction

After reading the Financial Minimalist's post about tracking finances not so much based on categories, but instead on how much energy it took to make that particular purchase (eg. the number of hours you had to slave away at your job to pay for that one thing) I decided to take a look at my purchases in a similar way. For me, things divided into three categories: real honest-to-gosh needs, things that were worth the money, and things that weren't. In the end I had a pretty short list of things that didn't give me satisfaction. You'll notice a pattern pretty quickly.

Diet soda at work	$2.00	eating out
Diet soda	$1.50	eating out
Pizza and chips	$5.00	eating out
Diet tea	$2.00	eating out
Diet soda	$2.00	eating out
Diet tea	$2.00	eating out
Kindle book	$12.99	entertainment
Twinkies	$4.00	groceries

Well, well, well. Not surprising from a girl who's struggled with food issues most of her life. And oddly enough, not a single object on that list. It's not the stuff that's cluttering up my life and draining me financially. This month it wasn't a super huge drain, around $33*.

In spite of my attempts to cut down on diet soda because it can make me binge, I spent $10 on this fantastically harmful stuff in a bottle. It always makes me crave sugar, which explains the twinkies. My goal next month is to buy a six-pack of cans of diet soda and keep a couple at home and a couple at work. This is far less expensive than the bottles I've been getting at work. It will also mean that I will be consuming less diet soda/tea than this month because at work all that is available is 20 oz bottles. Cutting this stuff out completely won't work yet.

The pizza happened when I got caught away from home and office with no packed lunch and suddenly found myself ravenous. If I'd been prepared and carried food with me as I'm always supposed to, that wouldn't have happened. I don't think I wanted pizza and chips, it just happened to be the closest thing around. Not satisfying. Must remember to carry food with me at all times. Even if it's just cheese crackers and prunes.

The Kindle book was, yet again, my eating disorder talking. It's a book on "staying slim," but it actually was one of the most sane 'diet' books I've ever read, as it focused on weight maintenance. Still probably wasn't a good idea to read, and even still, I should've gotten it from the library. It was a little triggering, but in spite of all of this I haven't binged in 20 days!

Lesson learned -- my wasted money all seems to have something to do with feeding my eating disorder and falls into the "eating out" category. I've justified all of it by thinking, "oh, it's just one soda," or "oh, it's just $2." It all adds up. This is what I'll have to pay attention to this month.


*That "little" $33 trickle? If I kept up this habit for 10 years, I'd spend over $4,000 on stuff that wasn't satisfying.

Less...day 18: Life Lessons Learned on EBay

Has it really been ten days since I've posted?! Time flies when you're having fun beating down your eating disorder and emptying out your home a bit. It's been a pretty good ten days. I haven't binged. I definitely have tried to restrict, which means there's something going on emotionally. I have definitely wanted to overeat. In fact, if I could type without my hands, I think I would need to sit on them right now so that I don't go devour the box of twinkies in the cabinet. I'm feeling particularly lazy and unsuccessful today even though I have no reason to feel that way.

Less...stuff

I have definitely been successful in getting rid of stuff. I've been ebaying quite a bit lately, with mixed results.  But it's been heartbreaking in a way because I'm seeing how little money I'm making on things that were quite expensive. In fact, I'm actually glad it hurts so much. For some reason when I give things to the thrift shop I don't feel so bad about how much money I've wasted. I suppose it's the endorphins from being charitable. Here's what I sold.

Pair of Coach loafers. Didn't quite fit. Cost $75, made $15 off of them. Total loss: $60.

Victoria's Secret bra. Purchased on a whim the night of our first anniversary when I decided that I wanted to wear a strapless dress to dinner. I should've just picked a different dress and saved myself the $45. I sold this for $6 but it cost that much to ship -- a complete loss of $45.

Sorry he's pixelated -- but this little Bo Obama plush I bought the night I went to see the National Christmas Tree after Obama was elected. I'm allergic to dogs. Why did I spend $11 on this? I only made $1 after shipping and ebay took their cut.

This item was the worst heartbreaker. I spent $75 on it because I *had* to have a purple bag. I sold it for $45, but the customer thought that it was too stained, and claimed that it had a tear that I know it didn't have. I just wasn't willing to fight -- I gave her a partial refund, enough to cover my shipping costs and ebay's cut, and she went away happy. Of course she did. I ended up financially no worse off than I would have if I'd just taken it to the thrift shop. But this felt much, much worse, like I'd lost $45. The $77 I paid for it originally really stung.

These all really hurt. I spent a lot of time and energy in packing this stuff up to get rid of it, and I ended up making a mere $16. All of which went to pay off my student loan, but I'm just furious at myself. Perhaps I've finally learned my lesson though, about how much energy, time, and money really goes into our possessions. We'll see when I present this month's spending in my post this weekend.

All told, four more items are gone.

The Reckoning

Items 188-191

Worth $208, sold for $16.

Loss: $192

Total money wasted on junk I never should've bought: $2250.99

As for less...spending, stay tuned for this weekend's post...fun with my budget spreadsheet! Sounds so exciting, doesn't it? ;oD

Less...day 8: why does success feel like failure?

Today's Less post is definitely a Less ED post.

You could alternately say that today was awful or a huge success. The Chief Engineer left for a business trip this morning, which leaves me at home alone. I saw this coming, I know that being alone with my own thoughts is a recipe for disaster. I haven't made made peace with the idea of separating from my family yet, and these are super-triggering thoughts right now. Being alone does NOT help this.

I've been building to some ED behavior for a few days now. I've been starting to compulsively do calisthenics, I've been inflexible about this four-meals-a-day thing. So what is the eating disorder covering for? First one's obvious: family s***. Every time I think about it I have the tiniest urge to binge or restrict. Today it wasn't so tiny. So I came home and I threw myself into cleaning. I washed the floor, I cleaned the gerbils' cage, I loaded the dishwasher, I packed up some items I sold on ebay. Meanwhile, when I would let myself eat, the only thing I was eating was chocolate. Hmm, something was still bothering me.

The second thing I was running from wasn't so obvious. I realized that I needed to send an email to a (former) friend who I haven't seen in a while but who I figured I should reconnect with. She works downtown and I'll be downtown next week for a doctor's appointment and then to volunteer at the Smithsonian. I'll have a huge chunk of time between the two of those and figured I should try to catch up with her.

I was dreading it. I feel awful because this friend and I used to be close, but honestly I started to get jealous of her when we lived right next to each other a couple years back. I know she has a history of an eating disorder and still works very hard to stay perfectly thin (read: she's not over her disorder and has no plans to be). She works for a prominent member of DC society and also has a higher salary than I do. She's a ladder-climber who just bought a very expensive condo and then gutted it and renovated the entire thing. Perfect kitchen, perfect bathrooms, all of which is very triggering for me because I want the perfect kitchen and the perfect bathrooms because the house I grew up in was the exact opposite. The bathroom that my sister and I shared didn't have a working shower--the shower tiles had gotten so mildewed that the grout cracked and water was leaking into the walls. We weren't allowed to use the shower because it would get more water into the walls. Instead of fixing it, my parents just never allowed us to take showers in that bathroom. For two. decades. I'm pretty obsessed with having a "perfect" kitchen and bathroom to make up for growing up like this. However, said friend with perfect bathrooms also likely has a perfectly jumbo mortgage.

The rational side of my brain says that I have no reason to be jealous of her. I hate my 15-year mortgage that we'll be done with in 10 years. I can't imagine a jumbo 30-year mortgage. She has worked insanely hard for years and I don't think she's had much life outside of the job. Meanwhile, I've gotten to learn guitar and put a lot of work into improving my own life with therapy and gotten to meet lots of awesome people through blogging. I've traveled loads in the last couple years. But I don't think I can sit at the same table with her at not be jealous. Particularly of how thin she is.

Danger, Wil Robinson! Trigger alert!

I realized that I just can't ask this girl to lunch. She's triggering. And sure, it's sad that a friend is triggering. Let's correct that -- former friend. There's no need for me to feel guilty, friends come and go. There's no need for me to try to starve myself now so that she won't think less of me at lunch next week if I don't have lunch with her! So I decided not to call her up, and to just let things go. So I didn't end up bingeing tonight. I did end up restricting a bit, which led to some overeating. I knew what was going on and I kept the irrational behaviors mostly in check. I did eat more than I needed and I ate some things that weren't good for me or what I really wanted. But it wasn't a binge. It wasn't a binge, it wasn't a binge. I still feel like a failure. My weight is still as high as it's been in a decade and this can't help. But it's just one day. This really is a success.

So yeah, I wanted a perfect evening where I wouldn't have ended up overeating. But I did end up realizing that maybe 4 meals a day isn't for me and that I want to go back to being flexible. I ended up realizing that I can avoid a triggering situation, and if it means losing a former friend, then that has to happen. I have to take care of me first.

How do you cope with jealousy? What do you do to make you feel better?

Letting yourself lose things

This post I suppose is also part of my personal Less...challenge. Days 6 and 7.

Less...spending

How many of us decided to start delcuttering because we were tired of losing stuff? I definitely did. But guess what? Today I lost something. I lost several things, several very expensive things. A necklace and earrings of mine I realized were gone and they've probably been gone for a while. I turned the condo upside down and couldn't find them.

Then suddenly an email showed up from a friend. A favorite jewelry store of ours called Fire and Ice is closing their Union Station store and selling everything for 50% off. Did I want to make an excursion and buy some jewelry on sale? Oooh, tough question, because the necklace that disappeared came from Fire and Ice. It would be so easy just to hop on Metro and go buy another one. Very tempting.

But as I was making this decision I was also working on some freelance artwork that a local store asked me to do. It was a quick project and I was probably only going to make $50 from it, but who cares, it's a fun project. But I suddenly realized that $50 was what I was going to end up spending on the necklace. I was going to end up cancelling out the hour I spent on the art project by buying something. No, I want more of my mortgage paid off. A few months ago I would've run straight downtown for the necklace to make myself feel better in the moment about being so disorganized that I lost it.

So I let myself lose the necklace. It's a lesson and I'm okay with it. I need to pay more attention to the things that I own and take better care of them. But losing things happens, even to the most organized people. In the end I spent less money and I have more respect for my possessions than I would've had even a couple months ago.

Besides, I already own another necklace with blue stones. Time for me to start wearing that one. I don't need two blue necklaces.

Has decluttering helped you lose stuff less? Are you okay with losing things occasionally or do you feel the need to replace what's gone?

Less...day 5

Okay, okay, I do have a good excuse for disappearing. I unfortunately decluttered one of these in the last couple days:

I've had life-threatening nut allergies for most of my life and managed to trust a friend to read a label on something he fed me instead of doing what is my responsibility and reading it myself....point being I had to use the epi-pen and ended up in the hospital for the better part of a night and felt lousy for most of a day afterwards. Fine now though. Unfortunately I do need to get another epi to replace the used one, so I can't exactly add it to my declutter tally!

Otherwise, here's how the last few days have gone. 

Less spending

Well, so much for that. Not reading a label cost me over $100 (hospital and ambulance co-pay) and a lot of discomfort. But I'm fine with that because I'm alive. Totally worth $100. I also picked up on Wednesday flowers for my therapist ($5) and a kindle book ($13). No objects were added to my home. 

Less ED

For the last three days I've been trying to follow the 4x4 plan my dietician wants me to get on, that's four meals a day, four hours apart. I've been pretty uncomfortable at meals but it does seem to be the right amount of food since it lasts four hours. When I'm not seriously full it doesn't last that long. It's going to take a while to adjust to this. However, it has meant that I'm eating less junk food because I'm not thinking about food so much. Score there.

I did, however, give into the scale at work earlier this week. It was a different experience than it has been in the past because the last four times I've gotten on the scale in the last two months the number has been exactly the same. It's not a number I like, but it's making me fall out of the "oh, my weight's going up!" or "oh, look, I'm losing!" traps. I know that the way I'm eating now won't cause my weight to go up or down and it's easier to trust my stomach. Now, I just have to learn to be comfortable where I am. Argh. 

Less anxiety

The little anaphylaxis incident in some ways reduced my anxiety because it put things in perspective. When your dessert can put you a mere 10 minutes from being dead, suddenly it doesn't matter whether my stocks went up or down that day, or how big my hips are. 

Less stuff

Tomorrow we have plans to reupholster our dining room chairs. The Chief Engineer has decided to get rid of a very large box that he kept around for his DDR game but thinks we don't need it anymore. I'm glad it will get reused and recycled. 

Less...day 2

Less ED
No binge, but still restricted this morning. I think I ate 8 times today so tomorrow I'm going to try for four solid meals. Hopefully I won't be thinking about food as much. I also tend to eat junk when I go for snacks, so maybe I can focus more on foods that will make me feel good physically.

Less anxiety
The restricting today again came from family issues. I have got to stop hearing the voice of my parents' other daughter in my head. I did talk to the Chief Engineer about how upset I am at the thought that I might never have a relationship with my mother. We talked for a while and ultimately redefined 'relationship' as, "whenever we go up to Philly I take her out to lunch and I simply refuse to talk about family stuff, as there should be plenty of other topics to fill up an hour." And I'm okay with that.

I started reading a book about emotional regulation. Apparently growing up in a hoarder's home, where the hoarder refuses to admit that there is a problem, or that the environment could be upsetting to the child, primed me to not be able to deal with my emotions. This book is a "skills training manual" which should help me learn to recognize and deal with the emotions I have related to growing up in a hoarded home.

Less spending
Today's expenses were $28 for lunch for myself and a good friend, and $10 for cold medicine. The lunch was expensive but he and I go out to exactly the same place and get exactly the same thing exactly twice each month. We're nothing if not predictable! One time each month he picks up the bill, the other time it's my turn. I really look forward to our bi-weekly lunches, so it's a worthwhile expense. And I got a cold this afternoon so the cold medicine had to happen!

Less stuff
I was well and truly sick by this afternoon so nothing got decluttered. But I did try to eye some potential items to get rid of. Next stop: my drawer of workout clothes.

I'm going to go bury my head in a box of tissues now.