There comes a time when it’s too late to tell people how you feel.
There will come a day when the person you mean to talk to won’t be there. Don’t wait for that day.
“There’s always tomorrow” isn’t always true.
The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.
In honor of Earth Day (a day late), I’m going to talk about ending litter.
Not the stuff you find on the street or throw from your car window. I don’t mind that because, on a long enough timeline, everything is biodegradable. Mother Nature is tougher than I am. She can handle my McDonald’s wrappers.
No, I’m talking about the real scourge: cat litter.
We’ve got four of the things, and let me tell you, they make poop. Everyday. I keep telling my wife that they are going to continue making poop as long as we keep feeding them, but she continues to give them food.
For those of you who don’t know, most cats use a litter box, which is a fun pan full of a sand-like mixture of diatomaceous earth and bentonite clay, which trains your cat to use the neighbor kid’s sandbox if you let the little potsticker go outside.
Thanks for that.
So, everyday, our four cats crap in a couple of pans full of sand. Until the sand pans get too full of cat crap. Then, they use the couch.
Who decided this was a good system? Is it a conspiracy of Big Couch to force people to buy new furniture on a regular basis, the way Big Oil suppressed the 1000 mile-per-gallon carburetor, Big Pharma suppressed the cure-all hemlock pill, and Big Sword suppressed world peace during the Dark Ages?
There’s got to be a better way.
Right?
Enter the CitiKitty. It’s the miracle cat potty trainer featured on The Shark Tank.
Here’s how it works:
Because I love testing things to make my life easier, and I hate cat crap, I gave the thing a try.
It worked great until step 3. Apparently, pooping directly into water is similar to trapping a vampire with running water and causes the cats to panic and find somewhere else to poop, never to return to the bathroom.
There’s really nothing better than stumbling into the living room half asleep, turning on the news and flopping onto the couch, only to find a little lump, still warm, under your butt.
Don’t get me wrong, step 2 was a pain in the neck, too. In order to use the toilet, you have to take the stinking sandbox off of the toilet without spilling litter all over the bathroom, find a place to set it that isn’t disgusting, do your business, put the litter pan back on the toilet, and wash your hands really hard. If you’re a friend of my son’s sleeping over, it’s easier just to not notice the litter box sitting there and top it off in the middle of the night.
It’s a heck of an idea. The best execution I’ve seen for getting a cat to crap in the toilet.
But it doesn’t frickin’ work. If you’ve got a cat using the toilet, I’m guessing you had to sacrifice the neighbor kid to some kind of evil Lovecraftian entity to make it happen, because the CitiKitty didn’t do it.
Last week, I paid a late fee to daycare. I neverpay daycare late.
Except last week.
As I’ve said before, I work 80 hours a week.
For the last couple of weeks, my three year old has decided that she needs to sleep in every morning. No getting up at 6:30 for her. No way. That little prima donna wants to lounge in bed until 8, then watch a movie while eating breakfast in bed. She’s never gotten that treatment, so I don’t know why it’s become her goal.
Last week, she decided to throw a tantrum when I woke her up.
Followed by a tantrum when I reminded her she doesn’t get to wear diapers during the day.
Followed by a tantrum when I dared to pick out clothes that didn’t have horses, or didn’t look right, or weren’t sweats, or weren’t picked out by Mom, or this, or that or….
I’ve been the one to get her ready almost every morning for 3 years and she has never been catered to that way.
Me: overtired, with 1000 things on my mind.
Her: diva training, trying to wake up.
Her sister: teasing, asking questions, and generally doing her best to stand under my feet.
Her brother: gets himself ready, but tries to avoid combing his hair before school, and can’t be relied on to put on clean clothes.
Me: overtired. Juggling getting three kids and myself ready to leave. 1000 things on my mind.
Daycare: What check?
She finally got paid on Thursday. Over the 12 years we’ve had kids there, we’ve paid late maybe 5 times. I hate late fees.
What’s the fix?
Checklists don’t work for me, when I’m rushing around. I tend to ignore them while I’m herding children.
Selling the monsters to the gypsies is out. They are far too difficult to succeed working in the salt mines.
We need to start picking out clothes the night before, to short-circuit most of the tantrum. We also need to enforce bedtimes better, but that’s hard to do Sunday night if they are allowed to nap too long on Sunday afternoon, which happens when I nap with my kids on Sunday afternoon.
Maybe the best solution is to switch schedules with my wife. I’ll go in to work between 6 and 7. She can herd monsters while trying to get ready for work.
How much would you pay for a kiss from the world’s sexiest celebrity?
That was the focus of a recent study that I can’t find today. There is no celebrity waiting in the wings to deliver the drool, and the study doesn’t name which celebrity it is. That’s an exercise for the reader.
This was a study into how we value nice things.
The fascinating part of the study is that people would be willing to pay more to get the kiss in 3 days than they would to get the tongue slipped immediately.
Anticipation adds value.
Instant gratification actually causes us to devalue the object of our desire.
This goes well beyond “Will you respect me in the morning?”
The last time I talked about delayed gratification, it was in the context of my kids. That still holds true. Kids don’t value the things that are handed to them.
The surprising–and disturbing–bit is that adults don’t, either. If I run out to the store to buy an iPad the first day I see one, I won’t care about it nearly as much as if I spend a week or two agonizing over the decision.
The delay alone adds to the perceived value. The agony turns the perceived value into gold.
If I spend a month searching for the perfect car, the thrill of the successful hunt adds less value than the time it took to do the hunting.
Here’s my frugal tip for today: Delay your purchases. While it may not actually save you any money, you will feel like you got a much better deal if you wait a few days for something you really want.
As I mentioned last month, Crystal and I are in a race to pay off our mortgages. The loser(henceforth known as “Crystal”) has to visit the winner. Now, since–judging by the temperature–Crystal lives in Hell, I think it would be good for her to visit in the winter. There something about the idea of going ice fishing, staring at a hole in the ice while sitting on a 5 gallon bucket, cursing the day I was born.
Today, she threw down the gauntlet again. She has apparently decided that, since her prerequisites are met, she’s going to win. Sure, she’s closed on her house and built her savings back up to $20000, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve sent a small army of arson-ninjas to keep her from getting ahead. They are so small, they can only carry tiny matches and single drops of gasoline, so the damage they can do is tiny, but it will add up. Just a word of advice: if you hire an army of arson-ninjas, go for the upsell and get ninjas that are at least 2 feet tall. Anything less is just inefficient.
When I announced the race last month, my mortgage balance was $26,266.40. Today, it is $25,382.53. In three days, there will be another $880 applied to the principal.
In February, our renters will move in and we’ll conservatively have another $650 to pay. When that starts, our balance should be around $23,000. Adding a portion of the rent payment should mean we pay off the house in May 2014. However, when I bring in our side hustle money, that will bring us back to September 2013.
Crystal’s projected payoff is July 2013, so I’ll have to hustle.