I failed on Life Insurance and Retirement Savings.

Apparently, $1000/month (what I’d save in retirement) and my $25,000 is not enough. *slaps hand*

LOL……

I also don’t know what I earn each year either — am a freelancer so this is not exactly geared towards people like me.

Apparently I need five years of my salary to cover my non-existent children and my non-existent debts.

Still, it was fun… Take the test here. Thanks to Single Ma for the link, who also scored a B+.

Ginger makes some awesome points about Suze recommending an 8-month EF and just paying your debt minimums.

She even got some of my tweets in there! LOL…

Personally, I am with Trent (mentioned in Ginger’s blog post, as I don’t subscribe to his blog) on this one.

I think people should stick to what they were doing before, and just adjust as they see fit.

6 months as an EF is fine (more than fine), and paying as much as you can on your debt is still the way to go.

The thing that really makes me so bullheaded on this subject (as you can see in my tweets) are these three points:

1. I can see signs of the economy rebounding

Call me a bushy-tailed, bright-eyed optimist, but I just can’t explain it. I feel it.

There is good news out there, and it will take time (I am not going to even try and hazard how long it will take, but I guess 2010 – 2011 sounds about right). I am just not a pessimist (although paranoid), and I am optimistic that things WILL turn around sooner or later.

It is not forever that this will last, and things have been looking quite promising lately.

What I may be cynical about all of this, is that if the economy DOES turns around, will many people learn from these mistakes? Will the governments learn? Will the bankers and mortgage lenders learn?

I’m not so certain. When the economy is/was good, people forget/forgot the bad times (Great Depression for example). When the times are bad, people regret not having done something sooner. Human nature.

Like Ginger said, I don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t claim to know any more than the next Jane Schmoe, but we can either be optimistic and take the signs of the market picking up as a good thing, or pooh-pooh everything and scream bloody murder when people try and tell us that things WILL turn around.

Perception can sometimes turn into reality.

And I know that the stock market is not a static entity that dutifully goes up or down based on P/E ratios, Betas, ROIs or whatever else you want to throw out there as statistics.

The stock market ebbs and flows with the change of people’s sentiments and hearts, and with unpredictable world events.

When unforeseen disasters horrors like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina happened, what happened to the stock market?

And didn’t we rebound back from that once people started picking their shattered lives off the floor with the support of the nations behind them?

Think about it.

The States is not in this alone. There are plenty of nations out there hurting as well. And everyone was burned pretty badly in this, so globally, we all just need to gain confidence (investors like you and me), and as a collective whole, and things will slowly turn around.

2. If you save more than 4 months in an EF, you are losing money.

If you save 4 months in your emergency fund or savings, that is sufficient, in my opinion. I know that in a recession it takes 6 months to find a job in the same field you were in.

But I’ve noticed something curious.

I find that the more you save, the more lax you become about finding work (*raises hand*).

The less you save in a fund, the hungrier you are to take a job, any job, to make ends meet, and to just get rid of that debt (*raises hand from the person I was 2 years ago when I was in debt with only $1000 to my name*).

Survival of the fittest and all that.

Plus, if you keep more than 4 months in savings, you are only earning maybe 2% interest on that, while you’re being slammed with 19% interest on your credit cards?

You are losing 17% of interest on your high or low balances each year.

17% of $30,000 = $5100/year in interest alone, and that’s just pretending it compounds YEARLY.

It compounds monthly, sometimes daily.

And don’t forget that once you reach a certain amount ($50 or whatever it was here in Canada), you are officially taxed on that 2% interest you are making off your savings account, but yet you cannot claim any tax credits on the interest you pay on your credit cards.

3. It is not easy to save even 4 months of emergency funds

Most people can afford to put away $200/month. If they have a $2000/month lifestyle, that means it will take them 40 months or 3 years to save that money for 4 months.

I am not saying “Screw saving for emergencies then!”, I am just saying that realistically, people get discouraged.

Sorry, we’re humans. I got discouraged many times, trying to pay down my debt and trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But I made it out, because I did what I thought was best for myself – $1000 in an EF and some crazy debt repayment.

She is now saying everyone should save for 8 months! That’s 6 years to save for that, at $200/month, assuming you don’t slip or have some sort of accident along the way that wipes it all out!

All the while, the $5100/year in interest is adding up to about $30,600 ($5100 x 6 years).

If I was told that I wouldn’t be able to start really paying down my debt until 6 years later, I’d be discouraged. Like REALLY depressed. 6 years is a long time to have that noose hanging around your neck waiting to choke you.

Maybe a compromise can be reached, take 25% of your debt repayment, and redirect it towards savings.

Mathematically, her advice doesn’t make sense to me. But emotionally, I can see how having a fatter, juicier Emergency Fund will make you feel more secure.

I personally don’t buy what Suze is selling, and you shouldn’t either without first figuring out what works FOR YOU, based on guidelines available from her.

If 4 months is good for you, because you can see opportunities where you can make money in a pinch, then go for it. If 8 months is more of your style because you are more of a nervous person, then go for it.

Figure out what’s right for your budget, your lifestyle, your income, based on your environment, age and skills. Then do what you feel is best. You can ask for advice, but don’t believe everything you hear.

All I am saying is just don’t listen to anyone (including me) blindly without evaluating the options for yourself.

Er.. moving online that is. I wish it were to Dallas, TX but.. that has to wait.

Don’t worry.

From all accounts from the furious Googling I’ve been doing, apparently if you go or type in fabulouslybrokeinthecity.blogspot.com, it will just redirect you to my brand spankin’ new URL:

See? Much easier to remember, right?

But… you WILL have to switch over to fabulouslybroke.com sooner or later.. and I hope you will!

I made the decision for a couple of reasons:

• fabulouslybrokeinthecity.com was taken, but HAH! I sure showed their money grubbin’ asses
• Ends up being a shorter name overall
• Which is easier to type in when I leave comments (what? I’m lazy…)
• Am keeping hosting on Blogger not switching to FTP so all the Google Juice is contained
• I want to do the move sooner rather than later when there are more readers

WHEN IS THE BIG SWITCH?

I am going to do the big switch on Friday because not many of you visit my page on Friday/Weekends so it’s the perfect time to iron out kinks affecting everyone as little as possible.

*crosses fingers* Let’s just hope everything goes as planned.

I never thought this little ol’ blog would ever dream of having its own URL. Huh.

Matt makes an interesting point in my post about Women and Money, leaving a comment that made me think:

Also, it seems to me that women are under a lot more spending pressure than men. To look “put together” you have to buy a lot more clothes than guys do.

I realized this when I went clothes shopping with my gf and she bought all clothes she needed for job interviews and working and spent over $400. I think I threw up in my mouth a little. Then I looked between my legs and thanked my lucky stars.

Agreed, but I think this comment is a good platform to extend the discussion a bit further.

Note: I am not trying to fix society, or say that it’s unfair that society expects us to act and look a certain way just to do the same job as our male colleagues – we just have to play with the cards we are dealt.

Women shop more….

And this means, there are more shops for women available (the range is incredible, most malls look like they are 50% geared towards women’s clothing, with one or two lone men’s clothiers located in the far back corner).

But it also means that with increased retailers, comes a wider range in quality, style and price. You can certainly find $1 – $20 deals on suits, but to look polished, suits come in the minimum range of $100 – $500 each.

(Thank goodness us IT folk don’t need to really dress up in a suit to impress computers!)

That is the same for men, but I did find that the quality of suits that were available to men, were limited, but overall cheaper as a whole.

I went to Filene’s Basement a couple of times in the States, and it was incredible the deals you could find in high end designer men’s garments from Gucci, Armani, for only $40 – $70 a shirt.

For a woman, a heavily discounted designer blouse runs at least $75 up to $100 a blouse, and there is NO guarantee it’s a classic white, or pinstriped sort of neutral. If the blouse is heavily discounted, it is almost sure to be some f*cked up pattern or colour that no one else wanted to buy at full retail.

Men, aren’t as adventurous in terms of fashion (at least, most men aren’t), and therefore most of their clothing choices are basic classics. They can walk into any store and find a decent, white collared shirt in their size, with very slight, subtle patterns that are suitable for the workplace.

Women? Not so much. With so much choice in fashion (which is both wonderful and awful), we see the whole gamut of gorgeous to hideous.

All retailers do this double standard markup

This markup is not limited just to women’s clothing. Haircuts are $5 – $10 more, drycleaning is $2 – $3 more per shirt.

When I had my suits drycleaned back in the day as I was trying to land my first big job, I had to stand back once and say: Why the heck am I paying $3 more? It’s the same fabric, and in a smaller size to boot!

How were they using MORE liquid to clean my clothes than a big burly man’s?

Our shoes also seem to cost more for the same quality.

We don’t need more shirts or pants, but we need more support underneath

A proper bra, and proper invisible panties (so that the dreaded VPL or Visible Panty Line disappears), as well as pantyhose (support or not) are the minimum of things that men don’t need because their bodies are not as curvy as women’s and they aren’t required to wear pantyhose since they don’t wear skirts or dresses.

Or if you’re in a dress or skirt, you may need a slip underneath.

Maybe a girdle to smooth out the lumps.

Let’s face it, women need a bit of makeup to look natural, that is, advertising natural.

Now before you get all up in my stuff, you have to understand that women are (like Matt said), under a lot of pressure to look good.

We are being compared to the image of women being portrayed in media, where it took them 5 hours to make a model look effortlessly natural, and then society can’t figure out why we have visible pores or marks on our skin when we go (really) natural.

I think I blogged about this once, with pictures of celebrities who supposedly were bare-faced and natural for a photoshoot.

I could believe some of it, but with the trick of excessive lighting, and just a SMIDGEN of makeup, and a bit of Photoshop magic, they looked incredible in the shoot, but hum drum in real life.

I need at the bare minimum, brown eyeliner on my upper eyelids, and concealer under my eyes, with a bit of blush on my cheeks just to get through the day without comments like:

• You look stressed.
• Are you okay? You look sick. (Read: pale and ghosty)
• You look SOOOOO tired. (Read: my NATURAL under eye circles caused by genetics makes them uncomfortable)

..and this is all on a GOOD DAY when I feel perfectly fine.

My bare face just looks naturally tired because we aren’t used to seeing women in advertising or in magazines look truly natural, and not advertising natural.

Their bags under their eyes, slightly saggy cheeks, fine wrinkles, have all been erased by the magic of Photoshop or if they are on TV, they are put under a LOT of light so that shadows cease to exist any longer, which makes you think they have smoother, firmer skin than they really do.

Men, don’t need to wear makeup (although I have a sneaky suspicion some of them do).

Lastly, without accessories, we look like a Plain Jane

I hate to say it, but without ANY accessories, not even a watch, we look a bit drab.

The clean, simple look doesn’t work unless the suit has a bit of detail to it, and you have a slim watch or a ring at the very least.

Without ANY accessories in a severe black suit, heels and a white shirt, we do look like plain Janes, devoid of personality or even femininity, which is again, a double-edged sword in the workplace.

We need a little pair of earrings or something, to finish the outfit.

Men, don’t need anything.

Women are definitely, as Matt said, under more spending pressure. On average, with the twin pressures of society and retail, we can’t help spending more.

Naturally, this is not a post to justify that we should all give in, throw in the towel and spend $1000 to look well turned out.

But if we don’t spend slightly more money than our male colleagues, we can end up looking cheaper than they do in the end.