Entries from April 2008 ↓

Since the hubby and I do not have any debt, we do not know the stress of debt, but there is definitely stress in saving money. First, you have to be vigilant about deals and sales when you want something.  Then you make sure you use your coupons. You also do things like budgeting to make sure that you have money to save.  Then after you save your money you have to figure out how to allocate it and manage it so you don’t lose what you worked for to inflation and other larger forces. Sometimes I do find managing our growing portfolio to be a pain in the butt.  One time my hubby laughed at me when I groaned at the dropping interest rate on our accounts and he jokingly said that he used to manage his money by spending it and I should do the same and cut out all this stress.  I glared at him a bit and told him that the interest rate on his entertainment fund as prescribed by The Baglady Budget also dropped.  At that moment he screamed in a dramatic fashion, “Nooooooooooooooooo! SCREW YOU FEDERAL RESERVE! YOU STOLE my game money!”

Surprisingly after eight months of marriage, the hubby and I almost never fought about money issues even though he is more of a spender.  I think one reason that we do not fight about money is that we have no debt.  From what I have read in the news and heard from friends, the stress of debt is very draining and even debilitating. One woman wrote me saying that she feels like she is always behind on the bills and she hates that feeling because it is like she doesn’t have control over her own life.  Unfortunately sometimes it creates a vicious cycle because research showed that when we are sad we tend to spend more money than usual. When I watched the movie Maxed Out, I was shocked that people actually killed themselves over credit card debt. I can’t say I know how that feels,but I imagine it is extreme psychological torture for people to take such extreme measures.

I think will take the stress of saving money over the stress of debt any time of the day. I don’t mind that the hubby and others laugh at my Ferengi ways because I find it funny, too. I have also learned a lot about the world and the economy through my research into how to manage my money.  In the end, the work I put into saving money gives me a sense of security and well being. Every month I pay our bills and then add up the amounts in our various portfolios and give the hubby a short net worth report. It’s always good to know that we have a financial cushion to fall back on and we are  ahead of the bills, and I truly believe that it is good for our marriage.

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Yesterday was the free scoop day at Ben & Jerry’s. However the closest scoop shop to us was about 20 miles away so we just stayed home. We received a flyer sometime last week for the 31 cent night at Baskin Robbins and have been looking forward to it ever since. It is supposed to be an event to honor the firefighters of America and the closest Baskin Robbins shop is only 2 miles away from home! What’s even better is that their limit is 10 scoops per person so we can each try a few flavors. When the hubby heard that it’s 10 scoops per person he said, “Ice cream for dinner!” However, I’m pretty sure he won’t buy ten, but it is a good deal because each scoop is supposed to be 2.5 ounces.

I haven’t been to a Baskin Robbins for a very long time, so tonight we are definitely going. My mom is probably going to read this and say, “YOU NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT”, but that’s another story for another day. So if there is a Baskin Robbins near you, take a stroll tonight and get some cheap ice cream!

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The hubby and I did do some fun stuff on our weekend to Vegas. On Saturday we went to a company sponsored party and then we saw the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere at Treasure Island at night. There are at least five Cirque shows in the various hotels, but my manager and coworker recommended Mystere because I have never seen a live Cirque du Soleil show before. When we were purchasing the tickets online my husband said, “Wait a minute, I know why you chose Mystere! It’s the cheapest show!!! I can read your mind!!!” That wasn’t entirely true, but we managed to get very good seats and had a blast at the show. There was a good amount of hilarious clowning, razor sharp acrobatics, and gorgeous aerial performances. Then there was taiko drumming and the live music was quite amazing. I really think the show had it all and I would definitely go see another Cirque du Soleil show in the future.

It is funny when I see on TV that kids say they want to run away with a circus. I completely understand the romanticism and adventure associated with being part of a circus. You get to dress up in pretty costumes, travel the world, and make people happy! However, I also know that it involves a lot of hard work because my dad has a group of friends from a national level circus from China. In 1989 the troupe was performing with the Big Apple Circus in the United States, and several acrobats and just walked out of the last show and defected along with a translator. They were allowed to stay in the United States and then other acrobats of the same troupe were invited to the United States later as teachers and performers. I met the ringmaster of those acrobats once, and he is a pretty amazing guy. He was already 50 something when he was invited to the United States as a teacher and didn’t know the alphabet or any English. Through determination, he managed to learn English phonetically by writing down each sound in Chinese characters and now he speaks quite fluently. He also handpicked many of the performers in his troupe. One younger acrobat told me that he was sent by his parents to train as a gymnast for the Chinese national team, but he was eliminated when he was 10. Every year the ringmaster goes to the gymnast training center and finds new performers for his group and picked him. Most of them have been training every day for 10 to 12 hours a day since they were five and the circus is their family in every way. They managed to mostly stay together and was hired to teach at an acrobatics and performance arts school in San Francisco called the Circus Center. Now after nearly 20 years, their students have performed in Cirque du Soleil and other shows around the world.

I think I appreciated the Cirque show even more because I know the amount of training the performers put into their art. It is a real career path that takes a lot of hard work and passion, but having sold out shows must be quite rewarding. So if you
ever run away with a circus, make sure you are ready for some grueling work!

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Well, I just got back from Sin City, and it was certainly an interesting experience. I have never seen such a decadent place where people indulge in spending money, and I was rather bewildered. Overall, we had a great time because our trip was paid for by the hubby’s company, but we did experience somewhat of a Baglady incident on the first night there. My hubby told me that I should blog about it, and so here it is.

As I said in my roundup post, the hubby made reservations for us at a very nice restaurant at the Bellagio called Picasso. It is a restaurant featuring Spanish-French cuisine and almost a dozen real Picasso artworks valued at over $100 million dollars. I was pretty excited about it because good food is really one of my weak spots. The hubby read the description of the restaurant on Bellagio’s site and it said that the dress code is business casual. The meaning of business casual in Silicon Valley is really “extremely casual”. We regularly go to work in jeans, T-shirts, and flip flops and no one really cares. So the hubby and I showed up in our normal clothes. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt with slacks and the hubby wore jeans and a polo. When we got to the door of the restaurant it hasn’t opened yet, but as more patrons showed up we realized we were sort of underdressed. We figured that it didn’t matter very much because we have been to many top restaurants in Northern California wearing what we usually wear and never had any problems. So we walked in when the doors opened and the hubby gave his name for the reservation. The blonde hostess smiled and then said, “Sir, we do have a dress code here. We don’t allow jeans and t-shirts. Would you like to change into something nicer and come back?” The thing is, we didn’t really bring anything fancy because we are used to being casual. The hubby was not pleased, and he said, “well, we are staying at a different hotel, and we didn’t really bring anything nicer.” Then the blonde woman looked at another waiter and said, “Patio?” The waiter nodded and seated us on the patio.

The hubby fumed about it for a little and said, “Man, that’s pretentious! It really pisses me off that they felt that they needed to herd us to somewhere unseen when all we want to do is to pay them a bunch of money for their food!” I definitely agree with him, and I think restaurants should spell out their dress codes better than just “business casual”. I found the whole thing kind of hilarious because men were showing up in heavy wool jackets when the arid desert temperature of Las Vegas was nearly 80 degrees. A woman showed up with a dress emblazoned with so many sequins that she looked like a mermaid, and yet another woman wore a tiny purple cocktail dress that barely covered her butt crack. Somehow, we were the inappropriately dressed weirdos in the whole charade. We did see another couple that got herded to the table next to us. The man was wearing nearly the same thing as the hubby. Since they came after us we don’t know if the woman at the door asked him to change, but I am betting that they got seated next to us because the man’s clothing matched ours.

I have to say that the rest of the meal turned out to be quite amazing because the patio gave us a front row seat to the Bellagio’s water fountain show. The service by the waiters was excellent and the food was quite good.  I still prefer some of the restaurants in Napa better, but the hubby said that Picasso’s food beats Napa for him, but then again he hasn’t visited French Laundry yet. I have to say that Picasso really can’t compare to French Laundry at all.  Actually I think the food is slightly worse than Auberge du Soleil, but Picasso did have a nice view of the Bellagio fountains.     In the end, we were given a box of treats in a cute little box and the hubby said that the restaurant has pretty much redeemed itself for asking us to change. However, he did say, “I got to taste something new there, class discrimination.”

So this is not really a total Baglady incident because Picasso did serve us, but it was still unnecessary for them to offend us before the meal. We know that they probably seated us because they didn’t want to lose our money, but it’s funny to me that I probably would not have been asked to change if I dressed more like a hooker rather than an engineer going to work. It does make sense because prostitution is legal in Las Vegas and business casual for a working girl is something that barely covers the naughty bits. I guess the hubby and I just don’t understand the class system in Las Vegas, and we had somewhat of a culture clash there. In the end, our money is real, and the food is real, and that’s what mattered to me.

How about you? Have you ever encountered a “Baglady incident” where you were refused or almost refused service because of what you wore? Feel free to rant here.

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It’s been a while since I participated in blog carnivals, but here are the few from this week:

Carnival of Personal Finance - I submitted my article about dealing with inflation, and since I wrote that people have been finding The Baglady through searches for stockpiling food. If I had more pantry space I would stockpile more food, too. Yesterday I went to buy a bag of rice and it was twice the cost compared to just 9 months ago. Today Yahoo Finance just ran an article on “investing” in food, too.

Carnival of Money Stories - I submitted my story about living in China, Hawaii, and California. I also liked this story about motivation.

Kids and Money - This is a fairly new carnival and I submitted my article on childhood memories about money.

The Education Carnival - My article about not pushing your kids is included here.

Okay, I’m off to Vegas now for the hubby’s company trip. Today also marks exactly 8 months since we got married so the hubby made reservations at a pretty neat restaurant in Vegas for us. I will write about it once I come back. Have a great weekend everyone!

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