aMMusing

I suppose wishes for a Happy New Year are in order even though, unbelievably, we’re almost at the mid-point of January already. Indeed, the first two work weeks of 2012 are already done, although the first, for me, was only three days long.

I’ve had a whole whack of blog topics come to mind in the month since my last entry, but somehow I got distracted by other things.

Wondering If It Works
Many months ago, the geek in me found that it was possible to edit what’s known as the .htaccess file for a website to exclude visits from anyone whose IP is from a specific country. For instance, one common practice is to exclude anyone with a Russian IP given how many spammers use that set of IPs. But for my part, in an attempt to feel more free to write what I wanted in aMMusing, I added commands to exclude all IPs from a particular country in North America. You’ve got three guesses (literally!) and the first two don’t count. I’m not certain these commands really work, but like a gift, it’s the thought that counts, I suppose.

A Marvel I Don’t Understand
I told you (at great lengths) back in October that I did my budget this fall on a massive spreadsheet. It seems to be working well three months into maintaining it, although I can’t understand why. Crazy, eh? I mean, I developed it so I should be able to understand it! Then again, this isn’t the first time I developed something that works without understanding why. Some would say I’ve become totally obsessed with my budget spreadsheet, as I keep working on it and looking at how the numbers are playing out; however, there’s something extremely empowering about it for me since it’s about looking towards the future and figuring out how to build an emergency nestegg (and how fast) and how I’ll pay to replace my car (which I expect to do around Junior’s 10th anniversary in Spring 2013).

My financial hero these days is Canadian best-selling author and host of ‘Til Debt Do U$ Part (with the “Home Edition” aired on HGTV), Gail Vaz-Oxlade. Not only does she make a lot of sense, but her blunt “tough love” bits of advice pass well because of her delightful accent (she was born in Jamaica).

Among Vaz-Oxlade’s bits of advice, there’s the need to create a budget. Some people equate “budget” with “cutting back,” just like others equate “diet” with “losing weight,” but that’s not her point. Instead, it’s the preliminary step to finding out exactly how much money is coming in and how much is going out on what. It has to include not just weekly or monthly spending but quarterly and annual obligations as well, like property taxes, water taxes, haircuts, dentist visits, vehicule registration, and so on. That’s the point where one sees where there’s fat that can be trimmed or cut out entirely.

She gets the people on her show to stop using credit cards and even debit cards and rely only on cash which she places in specifically labelled jars. (Personally I use my debit card as cash and rarely to get cash from an ATM, and I find I spend less that way than having loose cash in my wallet and pocket.) In some more extreme cases, she cuts back participants’ expenses by as much as 90 percent. If they complete the challenges she imposes on them over a few weeks, she gives them up to $5,000 to go towards their debt.

I started with my budget as she suggests and found that, although I’m in debt, my income is greater than my expenses (unlike most of her participants). That’s the most enviable situation to be in. For sure, I could go to a barber instead of the delightful Gabriel for my haircuts, but that would only save me about $8 per paycheque and that cutback (pardon the pun) isn’t necessary at this point. In the end, my budget maps not only the net amount of each expense, but also the monthly and, more importantly, the per-paycheque net amount for each.

I then considered, but stopped short on, imposing the “magic jars” system on myself. Instead, I took a two-pronged approach: the “calendar” approach for my cash flow in one sheet so that I can see when certain recurring amounts go out, and a combined “virtual savings accounts / daily expenses” approach in another sheet for daily expenses including those I automatically set aside (i.e., not spend right away), namely 6 fixed amounts ranging from $4.20 to $43.30 for haircuts or any of those irregular or occasional musts.

As a result, in the cash flow sheet, I have only one line per pay period for stuff I lumped together like food and other expenses. During the current period, that amount goes up based on the entries I make on my daily expenses sheet. On payday, the surplus or deficit from the previous period is added to or subtracted from the net paycheque — often when there’s a surplus, I put it on my line of credit — and the 6 amounts above are immediately deducted from that “lumped together” total so that I will have the cash to pay for those things when they’re due. That leaves me with the remainder to play with, but although sometimes it seems like the cash flow is in the red, in reality the variable accumulated sum of those 6 amounts remain part of the actual balance in my bank account.

What’s discombobulating about this approach is that the balance in my bank account doesn’t mean anything anymore. It seems like it should be heading into negative territory one of these months, but as long as I trust only what I see in my spreadsheet for any given day, that’s really where I stand. I don’t know how many times I re-examined my formulas to make sure I’m not double-counting (or not counting) some expenses, but the logic holds even though the bottom line in my bank account never seems to add up to anything I see on my spreadsheets.

So, I’m staying the course. I think the worse thing that can happen is that I’ll find that I’ve been too aggressive attacking my debt — it looks like I’m putting over 24% of my net towards debt repayment, which I gather is about 9% more than what Vaz-Oxlade suggests is optimum, although her 15% figure might be for when someone HAS to pay more than that just to stay above water — in which case I’ll just have to backpeddle a little bit on that front. Besides, even if it’s only a few dollars here and there, keeping one’s debt as low as possible means lower monthly interest charges.

Having Much of a Life Lately?
As you can tell, not really, but unlike a year or so ago, that’s not depressing me. Funny how only a few months in therapy changed my outlook so fundamentally.

Like I said, the budget thing has become very empowering for me. It’s actually set up to be the worse-case scenario, yet despite my expensive screw-up a month ago, it still looks like I’ll be relatively debt-free by the end of next year. Given how time flies, that’s nothing and extremely encouraging. While I’m currently not following Vaz-Oxlade’s “pay yourself first” suggestion, that’s only because I have something up my sleeve that will turn this worse-case scenario on its head.

But I haven’t been going out much lately, either. I get that way in winter. However, if I must be candid, I haven’t felt like it because of the 20 or so pounds I gained in the last two years. A lot of my clothes doesn’t fit well, but rather than buy new clothes, I prefer to lose the weight. Granted, by that time, that clothes will be in need of replacing, too, but I rather buy “skinny clothes” than adapt and buy “fat clothes.” I may like bears but I don’t see myself as one. Besides, I prefer hunky bears over fatty bears.

Any Vacation Plans?
Yup! That’s in the budget and it’s also why I want to lose weight. My first vacation will be for a week around Easter when I’ll be flying to Moncton and spend that time with my mom. But the second vacation — the “for me” fun vacation — will be the first two full weeks of August when I plan to spend a few days in Provincetown and then drive up the coast to Moncton (again) and Halifax. It’s not my dream vacation to Mykonos just yet, but I hope that’ll come in 2013 or 2014, especially if I can find someone to travel with. It seems like it would be more fun to travel to Greece with a friend than on my own.

Do You Still Follow Politics?
Avidly! But whether it’s in Québec or Canada or the U.S., there just seems to be so much I could be railing about that I don’t know where to start. However, combined with the uncertain economy, politics has become rather depressing. There comes a point where it’s better to go inside a little bubble to preserve one’s sanity.

There’s no two ways about it… This time I really messed up.

It’s probably not wise of me to admit to what happened, but then again, what’s done is done and it happens to be true.

I got pulled over this morning on Autoroute Ville-Marie for speeding. I’m not denying that I was speeding nor am I denying that I tend to drive fast. However, what I’m pissed off about is that I don’t believe I was going as fast as the officer claimed. In fact, I think I’m being accused of going 20 km/h (12 mph) faster than I think I was.

The official speed limit on the Ville-Marie, like on other urban freeways in Montréal, is 70 km/h (about 45 mph). Not that it matters, but no one respects that speed. In fact, I’d say that if one follows the flow in order not to get plowed down by others, the average speed is between 80 to 100 km/h (about 50 to 60 mph).

That said, I admit I was going faster than that, which places me in the wrong no matter how I look at it. The problem is that the officer’s assessment of my speed makes the difference between “speeding” and “excessive speeding,” which means not only a much heftier fine but also a shitload more demerit points.

However, does ANYONE have the time and energy to contest something like this? How can I be sure that he clocked my car and not another one nearby? I very respectfully asked the officer that question. I wasn’t denying that I was speeding but not to the extent he claimed …but how could I prove that? He snidely responded that he’s a professional who does this job every day and it was unlikely that he’s wrong (as if no human, including cops, ever make mistakes), but I can take it to court.

The damage? A few bucks over $1,000 and 14 demerit points. But wait! It gets worse.

Unbeknownst to me, my driver’s license wasn’t paid for!

Now you’re probably thinking, “Come on, Maurice! How can you not know that?” But I honestly thought that the amount I paid on time last August was meant to cover everything: car registration including public insurance AND permit renewal. However, the officer informed me that my permit has been invalid since my birthday …in 2009!

More than two years !!!

Fortunately, the fine is the same whether it’s one week or more than two years late: $444 including fees. But I think you’re getting the picture that my normally $7 breakfast at the Resto du Village ended up costing me a king’s ransom.

Okay. Now here’s something I didn’t blog about because I was too embarrassed when it happened. But now I’m writing about it to explain why I’m just going to take my lumps and move along.

I got pulled over early last January. Long story short: that officer cited me for not respecting a highway sign on the grounds that he, too, was going too fast. That incident happened before I admitted to myself that I was in the throes of “Depression Light” and, when I did admit to it, the ticket sat there, unpaid. Then, on that hot summer morning just hours before my first appointment with Lucy, someone knocked on my door: it was a man I described to friends and Lucy as the size and build of a fridge but known in fact as a bailiff, coming to arrest me unless I paid that fine right then and there.

Let’s just say that I successfully pleaded with him not to put the handcuffs on me (although he was all horny to do so) as we went to the nearest branch of my bank so that I could pay him cash. And in the following days, I uncovered an unpaid parking ticket I had left on a desk the night I got it and paid it online, as the threat of being arrested was one experience I didn’t ever want to experience again.

Obviously I can’t and won’t contest the ticket about the permit even though I swear I never got a notice to renew. Even at my lowest point, I knew what I would get in the mail; I just chose to ignore it. Even more obviously, though, is that I won’t be moving the car an inch until my permit is renewed. Until then, it’s the metro for me.

However, it pisses me off feeling I don’t believe I have a leg to stand on to argue against the severity of the speeding ticket. I’m told (although I won’t tell you by who) that I could show up in court and plead. But from what I’ve been told and what I’ve read, it wouldn’t be worth the stress and the time off work.

So while I really, really hate feeling cornered like this, I’m choosing to simply pay. And although I have 30 days to plead, the cheques will be in the mail by Friday. Then I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off, curse a little, and move on …more slowly.

Has it really been a month already since my last blog entry?! I guess so… That means it’s also been exactly a month since my last vist with Lucy. Funny, but it feels like 10 days or 10 months ago — fairly recent or another long-ago chapter.

Tons of sundry topic worthy of a blog chat (or rant) have popped into my mind in the last month, so I think I should just do a “This and That” grab-bag entry like Torn used to do when he would blog. (His readers haven’t enitrely given up on him even though his life is about to get increasingly busy since he decided to enrol in a master’s program in education, which is a huge and wonderful decision on his part.)

The Attempt to Quit: Update
I’m sad to say it’s not going very well. I currently smoke about half a dozen cigarettes per day. On the plus side, that’s five times fewer than the day I tried quitting and I hardly cough anymore, but on the down side, that’s still far from my goal of not smoking at all. However, there’s another plus side: unlike past attempts when I would tell myself that I would only be a light smoker (and, of course, would progress back to being a heavy smoker within a few weeks), I’m still in the “quitting” mindset.

I’m viewing my current smoking status as a temporary setback and I’m not giving up on trying to quit. But this time I categorically learned that, more than the first coffee of the day or after meals, work-related stress is my downfall. I only smoke in one room at home and never while I’m out. In fact, I’m well beyond feeling that panic when I leave the apartment without ciggies. To me, that’s still progress and I’m choosing to view the positives as more significant than the negatives — the chief negative being that I believed that this treatment would be any different than any other method of quitting.

Bad Neighbours
When I look back at this blog in its nearly 10 years of existence, I realize that I’ve done a hell of a lot of bitching about my neighbours. A part of me wonders if I’m really that unlucky and another part fears that I’m too demanding and intolerant. But at least now, after therapy, I understand better why it upsets me so much and that the truth is somewhere in between.

Last night I learned that the landlord has just mailed a registered letter to my neighbours upstairs. That’s huge and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t persisted with the janitor, an approach I likely would not have pursued with as much persistence prior to therapy. And I feel no guilt because clearly I’m in the right: boundaries need to be respected and I am entitled to insist that they be respected, an entitlement I second-guessed for myself in the past.

Today — Saturday — they were particularly AWFUL up until about 15 minutes ago when they stepped out for a while. I realize now that it’s not just the kids but also daddy, whose step is remarkably heavy for a guy who’s average to diminutive in size. I felt like going up and telling them that they are the most inconsiderate neighbours I have ever had, but unfortunately that’s not true: they are AMONG the inconsiderate neighbours I have had. But clearly it would go right over their heads, in good part because they can hardly speak English or French and my Mandarin is non-existant.

Not All Black and White
What a perfect segue for the immigrant guide put out this week by the city of Gatineau, on the Québec side of the Ottawa River opposite our national capital.

The village of Hérouxville started a huge controversy when it released a code of conduct for immigrants in 2007, which was filled with xenophobic “codes” like “It’s illegal to lapidate or kill one’s wife.” What made the Hérouxville code so controversial is that the village had precisely two immigrants, one of which was a Asian child adopted at a very young age by the Québécois family. What followed was a series of wrenching public hearings, with the fire fanned by the right-wing ADQ the led by Mario Dumont, as the rest of Canada smugly looked on and derided Québec, without a trace of irony, as the country’s most racist province.

As a francophone from outside Québec who came of age during the era of Prime Minister Trudeau, I am fundamentally in support of multiculturalism. No one should be forced to erase and forget their cultural history. However, I also believe it has to be woven into a distinctly Canadian identity. It’s unfortunate, though, that political correctness has led to many, many blunders.

There are very valid reasons why some people chose to leave their own country to come to Canada. In some cases, the reasons are economic; in others, the reasons are persecution and war. That said, there’s nowhere in the world I could go and expect my “Canadianess” to trump local values, nor would it be reasonable for me to expect that. Indeed, when in Rome, one has to do as the Romans. To some extent, that has to be true in Canada as well, except that what made Canada distinct in the last half-century or so is that there wasn’t an outright expectation that immigrants had to deny their essential identity and assimilate into a melting pot. The expectation was more one of integration coupled with mutual respect.

I hate to admit it, but there is, at least in my mind, a link between this controversy and my fucking neighbours.

Whether it stems from British and French legal tradition — let’s not forget that, constitutionally, Canada is a nation founded by the French and English — or our huge territory for a puny population, respect of space and privacy is, I would argue, an implicit Canadian value. If someone comes from a chronically overpopulated place, they might be more accepting of always overhearing others. Of course, that’s also a fact of life in large Canadian cities like Montréal, Toronto or Vancouver, but certainly not to same extent.

As for the “smelly food” edict that caused so much stir in the Gatineau guide, that’s a tough one. One the one hand — and perhaps most significantly — the variety of tastes we can enjoy now in Canada is remarkable compared to 50 years ago. But, on the other hand, I’m remembering when my brother and sister-in-law were in town last July and we ended up going through my apartment to figure out if some small animal had died in a wall in my office. Turned out it was the neighbours’ stinky food and it took nearly a day for the smell to dissipate.

That said, I would admit that was only a minor inconvenience and I probably would have forgotten about it had food smells been their only “offense.” Certainly I never would have gone as far as making “no stinky food” a point in an immigrants’ code of conduct! However, where do we draw the line? If I were to kiss a man in Saudi Arabia, I’d be in big trouble. But if someone immigrated to Canada from a country where being gay is outright illegal, that someone should not expect that “value” to hold here is well.

The Fake War!On!Christmas!
But when I wrote earlier that “political correctness has led to many, many blunders,” certainly the whole fake war on Christmas is a prime example.

Indeed, this is case where politically correct zealots have gone too far. I mean, everybody knows I’m no fan of Christmas and I’m certainly not a practicing Christian; however, I can’t deny that I was brought up Catholic, as were generations before me. That’s just a fact. When I wish someone a “Merry Christmas,” my eyes aren’t waxing over at the thought of Baby Jesus in some crib next to an alledged virgin and an old guy who probably couldn’t have gotten it up; I’m just being civil, just as I believe I would be civil when wishing my Muslim co-worker “Eid Mubarak” at the end of Ramadan which he diligently observes. In fact, I’m pretty sure my Muslim co-worker will be wishing me “Merry Christmas” on our last day of work before Christmas.

I suspect that many of those who are the most vocal against the politically correct zealots are Christian zealots who don’t actually know anyone who’s not of a Christian background. It’s right up there with the Hérouxville code of conduct for immigrants …in a place where there’s no immigrant !!! They don’t know what they’re talking about.

Today was my last visit with Lucy.

Today, it’s been a week since I last smoked …and I’m still going insane.

Also today has come to a head a colleague’s continuing behaviour that an expert like Lucy labelled “classic passive aggressive.”

All things considered, though, not a bad day.

Lucy didn’t seem convinced last week that the time to stop therapy had come, but she full-heartedly agreed by the end of today’s session. I reminded her of the guy who came to her in July and contrasted him with the guy in front of her today, which brought her to remark, “Sometimes we have to break down to put ourselves back together, but differently.”

I even referred to today’s incident at work: Before, I’d “own” the situation; now, I’m detached enough to recognize that there’s little I can do about someone else being passive-aggressive. It’s fundamentally HIS problem but he’s making it mine by trying to drag me into his crap. I’m only “involved” to the extent that he’s e-mailing CCs to our supervisor who thinks the whole act is like watching kindergarten kids, and he’s always claiming being too busy to have a chat on the phone. In short, I agreed to (and have) changed some things I do at work; he agreed but hasn’t really changed.

So remind me again how that’s my problem?

Precisely, it isn’t!

We talked about my not smoking for a week, and in her mind that’s the ultimate illustration of having taken control and wanting to take care of myself. I laughed out loud commenting, “I even have fewer headaches …and you know why? Because of these damn glasses I’m wearing now!”

Finally convinced, Lucy seemed pleased for me. “But you’ve worked hard on yourself,” she added. “You haven’t been afraid to consider anything.” I’m probably a psychologist’s dream: I can’t be that much work!

Now if only I weren’t craving a cigarette so much, life would be as close to perfect as I could ever wish…

Nat, formerly known herein as the Bush Whacker, mentioned to me in Facebook her friend’s Mo‘s short-lived blog from 2010 titled The Truth About Quitting.

At this point, I have been FIVE FULL DAYS without a smoke. And this time I mean it! Unlike previous quitting attempts when I would allow myself 1 to 4 ciggie per day by rationalizing that it was one heck of an improvement over 25 to 30 per day, I have not had a single puff, let along a complete smoke, since 5:15 pm on Thursday, November 3. So by all accounts — although Mo has some good points about that which I’ll discuss below — my body should be fully nicotine-free by this time.

I’m not feeling more stressed out than when I would be a few weeks into the first level of the nicotine patch. However — and that’s the fascinating thing for me — I can honestly say for the first time in 30 years that I’m nicotine-free. After all, the patch is nicotine replacement therapy AND I’d still be smoking a little, so the nicotine never completely left me before now. Now let me be clear: I’m still tempted like a sonovabitch, but I think about being nicotine-free and I say to myself, “No, it would be a shame to break that,” so I keep my resolve.

But coming back to Mo’s blog… I love everything she wrote about, including what I disagreed with or can’t relate to.

For you see, Mo quit “cool turkey”. That’s the same as cold turkey except that she had reduced to half a pack a day …over a eight-year period! For my part, I went from about 30 to zero per day overnight …but aided by soft-laser therarpy.

Another huge difference: Over the years, Mo restricted her smoking to one room in her house before finally forcing herself to only smoke outside. As for me, home was my smoking haven! Only when going out or visiting most friends would smoking be an outdoor activity and, unlike Mo, I didn’t have a strong “smoking = solitary” association and even less a “smoking = doing nothing else” association.

I would say the only statement from Mo with which I completely disagree with (or can’t relate to) is “that I don’t really feel any different.” Sorry, Mo, but speak for yourself! In only five days, my coughing has almost vanished and I certainly don’t have coughing fits anymore. A half-a-pack-per-day smoker is nothing compared a pack-plus-per-day smoker, so I suggest that’s why you didn’t notice much change.

That’s my only disagreement, though.

“Quitting wasn’t that hard,” she asserts. “Here is the most common story you’ll hear about nicotine addiction: it is among the most powerful addictions there is, as powerful as cocaine or heroin.” She is absolutely right that is what we hear all the time and she admits that she fully believed it. However, she colourfully writes about what she (and I) HAVEN’T done:

So I imagined the sort of fight I would need to put up against cocaine or heroin addiction. I pictured myself in a Trainspotting-like daze, shaking and sweating, out in my backyard in the middle of the night, flashlight in hand. I would crawl on my hands and knees, through the muck, desperately searching for an old butt that had escaped the outdoor ashtray. I would brush it off when I found it, raise it to my lips, feeling the dirt in my mouth, and light it, cursing its dampness. And then, once it caught, I would have one perfect drag, deep into my lungs, and my body would sink back, satisfied, and there would be some kind of dream sequence. And just like that, I would fail.

So far for me this time around, I haven’t even been more irritable. I’ve only felt occasional waves I would describe as a kind of pressure above the temples or a feeling inside my mouth that makes the urge to smoke flash in front of my eyes. But the smokes remaining from my last pack are still on the kitchen table, unmoved since last Thursday. In fact, when I look at the pack rather than just think about a cigarette, the resolve in my “NO!” is even stronger.

The other insight to which Mo admits not having thought of before trying to quit is that smoking cessation is almost as big a business as smoking itself. And that’s when I think to myself, Yeah …didn’t I just spend nearly $800 for a therapy in which I wouldn’t have believed if it hadn’t been for two friends who managed to quit with it? There’s still a part of me that’s wondering if I’m benefitting from a placibo effect. Certainly a lot more willpower is required than the “stop smoking in one hour” ads suggest! I suppose I can find some consolation in the fact that I’m doing it without any drug.

I love how Mo points out how little real and credible information exists about smoking cessation. I would point out that I’ve long said the same (politically incorrect) thing about “research” on the ills of second-hand smoke, but I digress. She raises a point I have also noticed:

Here is just one example I’ve found of the ways that the discourse of quitting is being shaped directly by the companies behind the drugs and NRTs: try to search for information about what will happen to your body when you quit. No matter how you configure your search, or how many sites you click through on, the majority of the information you find will be strikingly similar. It will divide time into these increments: 20 minutes, 8 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 2-12 weeks, 3-9 months, 5 years, 10 years. For the record, the (almost always uncited) information you find is copyright Johnson and Johnson, makers of Nicorette.

Credit to Mo: she found the copyright holder; I never did. Now my question is this: Am I REALLY nicotine-free by now? I’m expected to believe that what I’m feeling is 100% psychological?

But perhaps my favorite post by Mo is “The Shape of the Relapse Curve,” in which she poses the question that few if any “researchers” are posing but that quitters would like answered: “When is a someone who’s trying to quit most likely to cave?” And she found only one article that suggested that “approximately 90% of smokers who relapse do so within the first 8 days.”

I suppose that means if I make it to next Saturday, I’ll be in the 10%. But that said, even though I’m only five days in, I think I can already relate to Mo’s last thought in her blog: “I don’t miss the actual smoking anymore,” she concludes after 13 weeks of not smoking. “In truth though, I still miss being a smoker.”

I know people who stopped smoking 25 years ago but admit to smoking in their dreams when they’re particularly stressed out, so that indeed tells me how strong the psychological bond to smoking is. I also worry about how interacting with my few smoker friends will be like if I persist at not smoking. I think it’s going to be really weird…

I don’t think someone’s mood is like throwing a die and I seriously doubt anyone can control how dice might fall. Hence I think that this graphic, while cute, is off.

I acknowledge that I’m only speaking for myself and from my own experience. However, while I still have much to do, I know without a doubt that I have taken back control of my life and perhaps taken a bit more than I ever had. There could be setbacks here and there but, as a general trend, I feel there’s no other way from here but up.

It has been 48 hours since my last drag off a cigarette. Yesterday before my second treatment, I had serious doubts about succeeding and expressed those doubts to the therapist. The session was supposed to last about 60 minutes but he took nearly 90: he did some extra things in response to my stated anxiety, and you know what? I think it really made a difference! I might think of having a cigarette every few minutes but, each time, I simply close my eyes and say to myself, “Nawh…” And the thought goes away, like a wave receding back into the ocean.

Could this really be happening? Have I really gone, within less than a year, from “I can’t stand myself” to a 30-year smoker who’s quitting shortly after having completely cleaned up every aspect of his life and now feels confident enough to assert himself?

Last Thursday I told Lucy that next week should be my last appointment with her. She seemed a bit taken aback and mentioned some areas we hadn’t yet explored; however, with the greatest respect in view of how helpful she’s been, I replied that I was asserting my needs now and that I believe I have reached my best point in over four years.

I have taken control. THANK GAWD!

Don’t get me wrong. I know that I might have another puff. I know that unexpected turns of event will happen at work. I know that unforeseeable complications will throw off parts of my first serious personal financial forecast in five years. In short, I know that I’ll have setbacks and that I’ll get just plain pissed off from time to time.

But so what! Now I have a plan. I have motivation. I have hopes. I have a belief in the future. Moreover, I have peace of mind over what I can and cannot control, and a better understanding of what makes tick. I know the traps I need to avoid.

Hopefully I can now resume a lighter form a programming at aMMusing!!!

I have set the afternoon of Thursday, November 3 as my latest attempt to quit smoking.

Why that date?

Well, really, it was “imposed” on me. It was the first available appointment date.

Indeed, I’ve been thinking for a while (again) about quitting, this time by using soft-laser therapy (click the logo above for Stop Centres’ website), as I know two people personally who’ve had success with this method. Given that I’m a heavy smoker by the Stop Centres’ definition, I will be forking out nearly 800 bucks (taxes included) for the therapy, which currently is a lot more than what I pay for smokes. (Don’t ask, but Montréal-area smokers and former smokers will understand.)

But this is to say my reasons for quitting are not financial. In no particular order…

1. My coughing in the morning and the middle of the night has me frightened, so the Number 1 reason is the extent to which I now FEEL my smoking affecting my health.
    
2. My coughing can sneak up on me at the most inopportune times, and I feel embarrassed by it because I know everyone knows why I’m coughing.
    
3. Now that summer is definitely over, I’m less motivated to go out for only coffee because I anticipate (read “dread”) having to step outside in the cold a few times just to have a puff.
    
4. I’ve come to dread travelling because of my smoking:
    
• I hate having to think, when travelling by air, about the last ciggie before boarding and the first ciggie after deboarding.
   
• I rarely smoke in my car and, if I do, I make it as uncomfortable as possible in order not to stink up the car.
   
• Except at one or two friends, smoking must be done outside and I wouldn’t expect it to be otherwise.
   
5. I would prefer if my stuff and I didn’t betray (through smell) that I’m a heavy smoker.
    

Bottom line, I’m just plain tired of smoking.

The reason I’m more confident with this laser treatment than anything else I tried is because of what I recall from my last attempt. While on the patch the last time, when I would still have a craving, I felt it as what I’d describe as a “hot spot” towards the front of my head. I’m thinking this acupuncture-like laser treatment is more likely to address this particular problem or sensation.

At any rate, we shall see! But here’s to hoping (and another significant change in my life)…

In reference to the title of this entry and the previous entry on this topic, I’m starting to wonder if my rekindled budgeting obsession demonstrates that I’ve turned downright stingy or simply smarter. It might be a bit of both, although I prefer to think it’s more of the latter.

Yesterday I scooped out my most recent phone bill from my mailbox. It’s more of an FYI kind of bill because the total amount, which is stable every month unless I do some odd extra thing, is automatically debited from my personal account. Except this time I paid attention to the fine print and identified two lines in the details section that have long bothered me — something about maintenance fees.

So I called Bell — what an awful maze of “If you’re calling for this, press 1; if you’re calling for that, press 2″ they have! — to speak to a live agent. The “interior cable maintenance” fee was described to me as a kind of insurance: for $6.95 (plus taxes) per month, if something happens to my line that the reception becomes horrible or some people can’t reach my number for whatever reason, I can get a repair person to come and won’t have to pay anything upfront. “You might never need this for 3, 4 or even 5 years,” the agent explained, “but if you did need a technician, it would cost you over $90 up front.” As for the other fee of $6.95 (plus taxes) per month, I was paying it for nothing because my non-Bell equipment wasn’t even registered with Bell, and it is meant for repairs on such third-party equipment.

I did the math out loud with the agent, rounding off the numbers.

The cabling maintenance: $7 * 12 months = $84 per year and I never used it in more than 3 years. At that price, I’d be better off forking out a one-time $90+ fee if I needed to.

The equipment fee: Same calculation, but if my phone sets suddenly stopped working well, I’d just buy new sets for probably less than 2 years’ worth of fees.

“So basically I’m reducing my phone bill by $14 per month excluding taxes, which works out to $168 per year,” I said. “It’s not much but it’s better than nothing, especially for something I’m not very likely to use!”

The agent laughed, implicitly agreeing with my logic. She then “took the opportunity” to warn me that the basic fee is going up by $2 starting in January. She didn’t mention, however, that the Québec Sales Tax is also going up 1% on January 1, 2012, bringing it to 9.5%, and since it’s charged on top of the federal GST of 5%, our sales tax rate will be 14.975%. Except that when all is said and done, if I compare my current monthly bill to the one I’ll be getting as of January, I’ll be paying almost 15% less, or the equivalent of the sales taxes. Not bad for one 10-minute phone call!

It’s wonderful to be taking back control of all aspects of my life, even trivial little things like this one. I also asked the janitor this weekend to have the rental office send a formal letter of complaint to my offending/offensive neighbours upstairs. These are little things, but they’re all contributing to feeling less powerless as I bemoaned earlier.

Meanwhile, after work tomorrow, I’ll be going for my first of two consecutive soft-laser treatments in my latest attempt to quit smoking. This is an expensive proposition: it will cost nearly $800 but will include two “touch up” treatments over the next year and some herbal remedies for backup. But that is yet another testament to trying to regain control over my life.

I still have a few things to tackle in the coming days and weeks, all of them financial. But while “discipline” will be a featured word in my life for the coming months, I’m actually stoked about it all. I’m yearning for that sense of control I briefly held around June 2007, for when I fell in control, I’m able to make big decisions.

Indeed, it was in June 2007 that I stopped bitching about not living in Montréal and instead made plans to do so within less than a year…

Please start by clicking this image to enlarge it.

Now here’s what I’m getting at…

A friend of mine who’s obviously as enthralled by toddlers as I am recently posted this image on his Facebook page. The first thought that crossed my mind, as the usual thumping was occurring over my head, was to print this image and tack it on my neighbour’s door. It would be rude, but I don’t give a flying fuck (or any other type of fuck).

I was making myself something to eat last night after calling home for Mom’s 83rd birthday when the noise got progressively worse to the point I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I turn off the stove to go knocking on my neighbour’s door …again. When dad opened the door, holding back his devils with one arm, I just looked at him, raised my arms up in the air in a “What the fuck” expression and said nothing …because it was obvious why I was there and there was nothing to be said.

However, my forceful three knock on neighbour’s door led the Hispanic tenant across the hall to open his own door to see what was going on. After I stepped away from the offending/offensive neighbour’s door, I ended up having a little chat with him and his guest, who, as it happens, is also a neighbour who lives directly below my neighbour across the hall.

Observation One: I get the feeling I’m not the only Friend of Dorothy in the building. As we chatted, two adult guests of Offending/Offensive Neighbour With the Kids From Hell left, but I paid little attention to them as they walked by me except to note to myself that they were among those blasted singing Christians. When I returned to my place, the noise continued, albeit one notch down on a scale of 1 to 10.

This morning was another typical Saturday morning and early afternoon: noisy and thumping. Around noon I had set an appointment to get my hair cut in the Village at 2:00, but as I was leaving for my appointment I bumped into the Hispanic neighbour in the hallway, who was moving stuff for, as it turns out, the dog lady with whom I began talking when I realized she wasn’t standoffish as much as terrified of our janitor and her brood. We all talked briefly; when I said to Hispanic neighbour that I’m hoping they move out next July 1st, he opined they may well do so because they’re afraid of the dogs. Dog Lady, who’s hard of hearing, then asked me, “You mean those Chinese kids?” Which I confirmed.

Next time I get the chance to see the janitor, I’ll complain again and insist not only that she should talk to them but that she must ask the landlord to send them a formal letter of complaint. To that, Hispanic neighbour and Dog Lady said they would do whatever they could to make life as miserable as possible for the Offending/Offensive family by not holding back their dogs and what not — all within reasonable boundaries and only when the opportunity just happens to fall in their lap, I assume. (By the way, these dogs are big but wouldn’t hurt a fly, so this only sounds like a nasty thing to do.)

“I have seniority over them in this building,” I said, to which they echoed, “So do we!”

You know what? This all ties into the changes I’ve been going through in the past months as a result of therapy. How well has always trying to be the nice guy worked out for me? Obviously not well if it got me in that state! And what if these people eventually get evicted or driven batty by “unfriendly” neighbours? Well, quite frankly, if they don’t realize that they must set boundaries on themselves while living among others, then they would be getting what they deserve.

No, none of this sounds like the old me. I’ve come to make peace with myself over something fundamental: that taking a stand for what’s rightfully mine might be confrontational at time, but if I don’t do it, no one else will do it for me.

It’s funny… That’s more or less what a colleague at work said to me when I came back to work last month. “Take care of yourself,” she said, “because no one else will.” She meant that in the context of the corporate environment we’re both in, but it’s true elsewhere in life.

My next appointment with Lucy is on Thursday. I’ll be telling her the appointment after that will be my last. I think in the six months since I reached out for help and now, I’ve learned what I needed to learn and I’m very much on track to putting all of that into practice.

Now I wonder what I could do about the Canadian-edition featherbrained chavette next door who screams like hell while fucking to make her boyfriend believe she’s having a far more shattering good time than she really is…

When I started my permanent job in March 2006, I calculated my net debt at the time was two-thirds of the gross salary I would be getting. What’s more, I was officially being hired on a one-year contract, so while I hoped that it would be extended beyond that point or even become permanent, I didn’t count on it. Therefore, I made plans to use that year to make a serious dent into my debt load and to transition back into my freelance venture.

As it turned out, at the end of that year, my contract was extended by six months and, within a few months during that time, I was made a permanent employee. Furthermore, I had made financial preparations because I had anticipated keeping my previous freelance work as a sideline on evenings and weekends, except that the day job turned out to be so intense and time- and energy-consuming that I did little to no side work, choosing instead to delegate much of it.

However, the thing of which I was most proud in my first 12 to 15 months at the then-new job is the near-miraculous debt repayment I managed to pull off. Even with buying out the remainder of Junior ‘s lease, I found myself with a debt load below 30 percent of my gross income by early summer 2007.

I achieved this feat in two ways: First, I mapped out in detail my income and spending for 12-18 months in an elaborate spreadsheet and, second, I kept my expenses roughly at what they were when I was earning so much less. Granted, I allowed myself some extras, like getting “grown up” accommodations while travelling (i.e., staying at B&Bs rather than with friends) and making a few essential purchases (e.g., a new computer and replacing a desperately need dinette set). But the most critical element of the two was keeping a close eye on that spreadsheet and sticking to it and cutting back in some places to compensate for those places I went over budget.

By summer 2007, a small expected and a big unexpected happened: I decided to move to Montréal and I fell in love, in that order. Followed a spending frenzy during which I pulled all the stops. Yet when I recently decided to start paying attention again to my finances, which I hadn’t the energy to do for more than a year (when “depression light” started in earnest), I had to reach a rather pleasant conclusion: my financial position today is closer (though certainly not quite as good) to early summer 2007 than late winter 2006.

Since that personal financial “high spot” of 2007, much has occurred outside day-to-day life, most notably worldwide economic uncertainty stemming from the Great Recession, which today is threatening to return. Even though it doesn’t seem likely that my job will be terminated soon, I decided that I can’t make such an assumption. Despite racking in billions per quarter most of the time, an employer like mine could start crying famine after one or especially two consecutive quarters of deficits. And to be sure, executive salaries wouldn’t be the first thing on the cutting block; front-line workers like myself would be expected to take the brunt — and this despite past performance or the very negative impact on clients.

So that brought me to thinking about my “miraculous” spreadsheet of ’06-’07. “If I could do it once I can do it again,” I thought to myself. Therefore, I fired up OpenOffice Calc a few weeks ago — I prefer not to have Micro$oft products on my newer computers, except for the operating system itself — and by now I’ve refined a financial outlook to the end of 2012 that would lead to an improvement similar, though perhaps not as spectacular, to the one of ’06-’07.

The biggest challenge in my opinion is realizing that a budget is theoretical and can be quite detached from cash flow. We tend to think in terms of months, quarters and years, but those of us who are paid every two weeks actually receive 26 paycheques per year, not 24 as a monthly projection would imply. Yet it seems those “extra” two paycheques always go to waste.

So what I designed on the first worksheet is a yearly budget, trying to come up with all unavoidable expenses like haircuts, web hosting, insurance, annual auto plates/insurance renewal, and so on. The only thing I didn’t consider is gas for Junior or the occasional refills on my transit pass, as those are next to impossible to predict. As for a budget item like food, I decided to go much higher than average to take into account that I’m not likely to change overnight and start eating in nearly 100 percent of the time. (Basing budget numbers on hope rather than reality is, in my mind, a sure-fire way of creating a doomed budget.) The most important line item I added was to automatically place 16% of my net income on servicing my debt, which one day will become an automatic deposit into a savings account. I then calculated in subsequent columns how much each line item represented by month and, most importantly, by pay period.

That’s how I figured out how, despite a year-plus of neglect, I managed not to sink back too far into debt: my expenses remain lower than my income, albeit not by an enormous amount. I found that there is some wriggle room when looking at the yearly and per-period picture, but the trick is to plan months ahead rather than paycheque to paycheque.

So now what I do is save small per-period amounts into fictional accounts for all recurring expenses. For example, I spend about $300 per year on my dentist, but setting aside $11.54 per paycheque is much easier than scraping up $150 after one visit to the dentist, which usual ends up going on the credit card and gets paid later. (And if one visits ends up costing more than was set aside, there’s that much less to defer.) The same goes for once-a-year payments like auto plates/insurance. Since I leave those set-aside sums in my general account, I ignore what my actual bank balance is at any given time; I trust only the balance shown my spreadsheet.

Although the per-period leftover is small, I add that amount to all those fixed “set-aside” amounts; I then consider that lump as one row of “money spent” in my general ledger but track in detail in a separate worksheet a detailed breakdown of that lump that includes all those fixed per-period amounts placed into my fictional “accounts.” I have another worksheet where I tally only the fictional “accounts,” which gives me a running total of what’s waiting to be spent in the near or medium future. And as I mentioned, I have another worksheet which is the general ledger in which I track cash flow: one row for paycheque, another for fixed debt/savings payment, another for living/”set-asides” into the fictional “accounts,” and one row placed “just in time” (i.e., at the date each is expected to hit my general account) for each item like phone, hydro, cable or rent. That means when I do pay cash for my dentist or a haircut, I don’t record the expense on the general ledger but on the “running total of money set aside” spreadsheet.

Theoretically, some periods end in the red, but the beauty of this scheme is that, after a few months of following this regimen, the accumulated savings into those fictional accounts prevent me from actually dipping into my overdraft yet the cash is there “just in time” when I need it (to pay my dentist or hair stylist cash). I also added formulas so that if I go slightly over budget during a period, I have less discretionary income in the next period, but if I stay slightly under budget, the surplus goes into the next period and it can go either to making the next period balance more easily or towards more debt servicing or savings.

It’s a thing of beauty, I tell ya! I’m keeping a few details secret from this blog for now, but what I can say is that within a foreseeable future, I should be in the situation most financial analysts say one should be, namely with a few months’ savings in case of sudden unemployment (although employment insurance would likely kick in as well at first). And although Junior continues to run well for an aging car, I can foresee replacing him when I have to without getting back too deeply into debt. I know there’s bound to be unexpected expenses (right down to vacation getaways), but those can comfortably go into the debt column for a while because, under this scheme, credit is for such extras that can be reimbursed in full within a reasonable period of time and not for day-to-day living.

I know this is a terribly boring topic; we unfortunately all have to worry about our personal finances. But I suddenly feel like such a responsible adult for a change! And I recognize, after this exercise, that I’m more fortunate than most …no pun intended. I may never be able to afford real estate in Montréal, but otherwise there are many who would envy the situation I’m in.