Mint.com

Last week I posted about my financial goals. This week I'm letting you know my favorite (free!) tool to help me achieve them. It's a website and an app called Mint.com.

Mint.com is a free - did I mention it's free? - web-based personal financial management tool that uses bank-level encryption. It lets you track your bank, credit card, investment, retirement account, and loan balances and transactions all in one spot. You can use it to make budgets and set financial goals that it will keep track of for you. And, like the myfitnesspal app I told you about a couple of weeks ago, it gives you pretty graphs of everything. Have I mentioned that I love graphs? Just look at this lovely user-friendly website (unfortunately this is not me - I do not have nearly this much money):

Picture of mint.com with pie graph of spending by category, list of budgets, etc. 

What I like about this website/app is that you spend a bit of time setting it up, and then it tracks everything automatically from there. I have all of my credit card bills, student loan, car loan, bank accounts, retirement account, etc. on there and it keeps track of it for me. I set up my budget on there and it tracks it automatically using the info from my banks. It breaks down my spending into an easy-to-interpret pie chart so I can see where I'm going over. And it keeps track of my net worth which is pretty damn motivating since I desperately want that number to get to a million. [Laugh now but just you watch because somehow or other I'm going to be a millionaire before I die.]

Mint uses bar charts to help you stick to the budgets you set.

A lot of people are freaked out by using something over the internet to track finances. They're afraid someone will hack into their account and steal all of their money. If you're really worried, you also shouldn't do any online banking or make any purchases online because those are equally unsafe. Here's why I'm not worried:

Intuit, mint.com's owner, provides the same security software for each of the banks. If someone were to hack into my mint.com account, they'd have no access to any funds. To access my funds, they'd need to hack into my bank account and mint.com doesn't help with that since it doesn't provide the info they'd need to do access any account. Further, my bank accounts and credit cards require me to answer secret questions if I log in from an unrecognized computer and they send me an email when that happens even if the question is answered correctly, so I'd know right away about any attempted breach in security. Mint does not have this information, so neither would a hacker. Lastly, I'm fairly broke. Perhaps I'd worry about this stuff if I had a ton of money? If that were the case and I was worried, I'd probably just put the bulk of my savings and investments in places not linked to mint and track them manually so I could continue to use mint to track my credit cards and monthly spending.

Soon? I will be like this man:

Laughing man in suit and glasses holding money.

Dearest blog readers - do any of you use mint.com? Do you use something else instead? Do you have a budget? How are you keeping track of your money?

Birthday Fun!!!!

Ok. For my birthday, I did bunch of separate things. I kicked off birthday week with my first pedicure ever, courtesy of my friends Tinkerbell and Morgana:

Morgana in a pedicure chair.

Tinkerbell and I soaking our feet before our pedicures.

My feet in the pedicure soak.

My birthday week continued on my actual birthday with phone calls, Skype serenades, and Facebook messages from far away friends. I had both jobs and a test on my birthday, but Morning surprised me with chocolate cake when I showed up at his apartment for work so that pretty much made my day. And when I got home I had birthday presents from my housemates waiting for me. Apparently these were picked out by the kids for me to wear on Fierce Fridays:

Red lipstick, sparkle nailpolish, and a bunch of eyeshadow.

My birthday week continued on the weekend with a trip to a chocolate brunch with some friends from high school - Alice, Karaoqueen, and Plath. We dressed up and ate SO much chocolate we were stuffed:

Plath in black and grey striped dress, yellow cardigan,
yellow skull earrings, black tights and shoes.

Alice in a pink dress, green jacket,  yellow clutch with
blue scooters on it, and white heels.

Karaoqueen, me, Alice, and Plath standing side by side smiling.

Me in jeans, black boots, light blue and pink
plaid shirt, navy vest, and navy nail polish.

Karaoqueen in jeans, black boots, black scoop neck
top, and coordinating black and white polka dot fitbit.

Raspberry and chocolate dessert.

Dark chocolate creme brûlée.

Pink cotton candy.

Today my birthday celebrations came to a close with an all-day housemate birthday extravaganza. The day started with makeovers, in which the kids and I put on ALL of the makeup they bought me. At once. Unfortunately I can't show you the kids but I can show you me.

Me in jeans jacket, black shirt, sparkly blue necklace, and all of the makeup 

My fingernails - navy blue with sparkles on them - they look a bit like stars. 

 After makeovers, we all headed out for pizza and candlepin bowling. The kids beat the adults, but only because they had bumpers! Amusingly enough, we were all pretty horrible at bowling. Which is good, since I'm really bad and it meant that I didn't lose by too much…

Primo bowling.

We try to figure out how to put in our names for bowling.

After bowling, we went to the local ice cream parlor and ordered the "Button Buster." It was eight scoops of ice cream, two bananas, four sauces, nuts, sprinkles, two kinds of candy, whipped cream, and cherries. We did a decent job of it but had to leave some ice cream soup behind. Plum was last woman standing and we were all a bit impressed by her.

Me with a ginormous bowl of ice cream, and my friend Fancy behind me making an "oh my God!" face.

Fancy laughing as Plum eats the final bits of ice cream.

After the ice cream, we went for a mini nature walk and then watched a movie. Not a bad end to birthday week.

The kids on a bridge.

Fierce Friday!

It's Fierce Friday AND the day after my birthday! I will recap the birthday things on Sunday after the partying is done. For now, my outfit...

Me in jeans jacket, grey scarf, and blue patterned hat.

In honor of my birthday, I'm wearing something pretty and daring. Today I'm wearing lace! I have a dark blue lacy camisole that is surprisingly comfortable. I've worn it with lovers and alone in my room but never out in public. I've decided that my birthday week is the perfect week for its public debut. I even found a nail polish color that matches.

To balance this shocking display of femininity I am wearing jeans, stompy boots, and what I like to call my "dog tags for Jesus." I would've gone for the whole "leather and lace" thing but I don't wear leather. Anyone want to gift me a vegan leather jacket? No? Right. Anyway, in lieu of leather I went for my own twist on leather and lace with an entirely different masculine jacket - a jeans jacket borrowed from a friend who clearly didn't realize he's never getting it back. Muahahaha...

Ok just kidding. It's not nice to steal things. Plus he's about 6 feet tall so the jacket is too big on me. I'll give it back - eventually. You know. Some day in the future when I finally buy or make one for myself that actually fits.

Me in my Fierce Friday outfit smiling at the camera. 

Closeup of necklace and lace.

Laying down so you can see my whole body.

Throwing the devil horns and sticking out my tongue.

Also, because I've now talked about leather and lace so much, I feel obligated to post the song "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley. It's a pretty song that I remember my mom playing in the kitchen when I was a kid.

Happy Birthday To ME!!!

My New Swolemate

When I was in college, my roommate and I were fitness buddies and we used to joke that we were each other's swolemates. (Swole = slang for swollen aka buff/fit.) After college I had a rock climbing buddy for a bit and then a long-distance friend I swapped workout plans with, but all of that trailed off when I stopped trying to lose weight.

But now I've got a new swolemate and she's awesome! She's a queer, Christian, vegan, disabled, fat femme who is also not focusing on weight loss. She made a Facebook post looking for fitness buddies so of course I was excited to sign up for the job. Her goal is just to get moving more in general, mainly with walking. She lives in another state so we can't work out together, but so far we've been able to support each other's goals in a positive way without the self-hatred that often comes from people talking about working out and eating healthfully.

Do you have a swolemate? How about partners in your other life goals?

Financial Goals

I just finished posting about my fitness goals, and since I've already talked about finances on this blog I figured I should share my financial goals. Here they are:

Pay Off Car

At my current rate of repayment, I should be done with this goal in 16 months.

Car made of money.

Pay Off Timeshare

This may have been a financial mistake - time will tell. At any rate, I need to pay the thing off.

Cartoon of people on a tiny island surrounded by sharks saying
"Could be worse - we could be surrounded by timeshare salesmen…"

Eliminate Credit Card Debt

I'm pretty sure my tax refund will be enough to finish this goal. 

Person cutting up credit cards.

Eliminate Medical Debt

This goal is going to take me a while. About $4,000 of my medical debt is in the form of a loan from a friend, who I'm slowly repaying with dog walking and other random work. The other $3,000 is owed to a bank and it's at a 4.5% interest rate.

Stethoscope on top of money.

Pay Off Student Loans
My student loans are currently deferred because I'm in school. I'll probably continue deferring them while I focus on paying off my other debt and going to school for nursing. I've got under $9,000 left, which is a big improvement from how much I had when I graduated!

College graduate shackled to large weight labeled "loans."

Save For Retirement
I have a Roth IRA, but I want to switch institutions because my current one is underperforming. Ideally I'm hoping to find somewhere good performance and solid ethics. Once I do that, I'll start putting more money in. I don't have the option of payroll deductions so I calculated out 5% of my income and my plan is to have that much money automatically transfer every two weeks when I get my paycheck. Once my credit card is paid off I'll up the amount to 10% of my income since I won't be making credit card payments.

Old woman making the devil horns hand gesture.

Set Up A Rainy Day Fund
My goal is to be putting 5% of each paycheck into a rainy day fund, with the eventual goal of having $10,000 in there. I have to figure out where to put this money, though, so it makes more interest than my bank account. Maybe in a money market or savings bonds? It has to be somewhere I can cash it quickly if I need it for an emergency.

Person under an umbrella made of money.

Give to Charity
I'd like to start out with putting aside $20/week to give to charity. My eventual goal is to increase that to at least 10% of my income. I grew up in a Christian family and I still love the idea of giving back 10% of your income to God. However, I can't in good conscience give money to the Church because I won't help finance their anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-woman agendas. The point of tithing is to put God first and give your financial support to God's work. Because of that, I feel confident that I can tithe by giving to charities that align with my values. I'm calling it my alternatithe. Get it? Anyway, I plan to work up to 10% once I get the debt situation under better control, ideally by the end of this year.

Person holding a jar of pennies that says "charity."

What Motivates Me?

Why do I have financial goals? Lots of reasons. The most obvious one being that I want to be in charge of my life and I can't do that when I'm living paycheck to paycheck with creditors breathing down my neck. The most personal one, though, is that I want to have kids.

Chameleon (I think?) and its baby.

When my husband left I thought my dream of a family had just walked out the door with him. A couple of years and a lot of therapy (and some meds) later, I no longer feel that way. I still want to be a parent, though, and that means preparing myself to become a single parent. As I mentioned on here already, I just sterilized myself. Before I did that I did gamete banking in case I want to have a biological kid. The likelihood of that happening is rather slim since I'd need a donor and a surrogate and a buttload of money for the medical procedures, but I figured it couldn't hurt to keep the option open. That said, I've always been more excited about (open) adoption. Adoption gave me the world's most kickass brother, plus his siblings and aunt and uncle. It gave me an awesome younger cousin. I have friends who were adopted and friends who chose adoption for their children and friends who are adoptive parents. I think it's an awesome way to build a family. But whichever way I choose to make a family, I want as much financial stability as possible before I take on a kid (or two, or three) as a single parent. Hence all the financial planning.

Baby wrapped up in money.

What are your financial goals? What dreams would you like to accomplish that could benefit from more stable finances?

Friends Don't Let Friends Skip Leg Day

Ok. While looking up leg exercises, I came across this meme:

Silhouette of a man lifting weights with very buff arms and skinny legs,
text says "friends don't let friends skip leg day."

I find it problematic in ways it was obviously not intended. What the meme is trying to say is that you shouldn't neglect half of your body when you're doing your workout, which is apparently something a lot of people do.

Here's why I dislike it, in addition to the fact that it's usually written on a picture of an actual person and I don't condone mocking people for their appearances: it's ableist. Lots of folks who use crutches or wheelchairs have upper bodies that are more muscular than their lower bodies. My brother has cerebral palsy and he has this body shape. This meme makes fun of his body. For the record, my brother also thinks I'm over thinking this. He's also a much more get-along kind of guy than me. I mean, only one of us went through a stridently militant vegan phase (*shrug*). At any rate, I think this meme does a disservice to people with this body type and it could possibly make them feel bad about their bodies.

So for the record, I'm letting you know - there is NOTHING wrong with this body shape. You can be sexy and have this body shape. You can be a total badass and have this body shape. And in case you don't believe me, let me give you a few examples of rather awesome people who will be skipping leg day...

Oracle, from Batman. She is a paraplegic martial artist who is also a librarian and computer genius. What's not to like about this character? She kicks some serious ass:

Oracle comic fighting a super villain.

In real life we have Dergin Tokmak, a paraplegic dancer who was in Cirque du Soleil:

Dergin Tokmak, shirtless, doing a handstand on his crutches. 

Back to fiction we have Professor X, leader of the X-Men. He's a telepathic paraplegic super-genious:

Cover of X-Men comic with Professor X in his wheelchair.

And back to real life again there's Angela Rockwood, a paraplegic and a professional model and actress:

Angela Rockwood sitting in her chair looking good.

There's also Colt Wynn, a paraplegic and professional bodybuilder who I find hot as hell:

Colt Wynn in his wheelchair looking sexy as usual.

There are lots of other awesome disabled folks (FDR, Frida Kahlo, RJ Mitte, Sudha Chandran, Josh Blue, and my brother come to mind) who have this body type. So basically, friends don't let friends skip leg day. But they also don't let ableist memes pass by without comment.

Can you think of some more people I've missed who should be on this list? It would be awesome to fill the comments section with examples of kickass people who will be skipping leg day.

Fierce Friday!

It's Fierce Friday again and I've decided to rebel against the cold weather by wearing an outfit inspired by spring and the flowered Dr. Martens I acquired for free when they stopped fitting their original owner. Yay!

White Dr. Marten boots with pink flowers, ribbon laces, yellow socks.

I'm wearing a maroon t-shirt, my flowery scarf, jeans, the aforementioned Docs, and red nail polish. Also my bicycle bracelet, a cheerful necklace, and a ridiculous sun hat because why not?

Me on my way to work: flowered scarf, black sun hat.

Body shot: red shirt, colorful bead necklace, bike bracelet, jeans, flowered boots.

Me without the hat so you can see my new haircut.

Me with the hat and my hand with nail polish and bike bracelet.

And because I feel like sharing a song that makes me feel like spring... My ex boyfriend introduced me to the song "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" by Tom Lehrer and I particularly enjoy this Mary Poppins mashup of it. I am a bad, bad vegetarian: