Badgers in Exile

Wisconsin makes CNN video!

2008-03-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

As I’ve said before, Wisconsin never makes national news for anything good, but at least this clip isn’t too bad and a pretty cool clip. Amazingly, the driver was not seriously injured.

My friends the drug dealers

2008-03-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

So I've been on the road for the last few days visiting American prisoners. This is one of the things that consular officers typically do, but all Foreign Service Officers have to do some consular work once in a while, so this time it fell to me. I had actually visited some of these guys last year as well, and I can tell you that they are happy to have visitors--Latin American prisons are not the nicest places, as you can imagine. These are about as nice as you would imagine--peeling paint, creaky gates, bugs everywhere--and you practically bathe in hand sanitizer when you get out of there. I try not to think about the possibility of airborne illness; it's too scary to think about what I might be bringing home to my family.

The thing that surprised me was how the prisoners--all in for drug running--reacted to my visit: 2 of the 3 hugged me when they saw me (well, actually it was the extremely manly half-hug with solid claps on the back) and were curious how things were going for me. Strange reception when all I was bringing them was vitamins and old copies of Newsweek!

February 2008 Net Worth Review

2008-03-03T05:26:00.000-08:00

Wow, that's some jump! As I mentioned previously, we got a huge federal tax refund (presumably for the last time, since I redid our withholding in order to be able to fully fund our retirement accounts), which allowed us to put some into the house fund and open another Vanguard account.

In spite of the fact that the market ended sharply lower, I still managed to come up with solid gains in our retirement accounts simply due to the extra cash I dumped in by raising my TSP contributions. Obviously, more than anything else that indicates that I don't really have very much saved yet! Oh well, I'm not going to complain about a monthly increase of 13% in our net worth!

Making the leap

2008-02-22T05:07:00.000-08:00

Well, this has been an interesting month—today’s paycheck marks the first one in which I’m maxing out my TSP contributions, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see how much I have left over. Of course, the entire thing was made easier by my adjustment a little while ago to my federal withholding, so goodbye fat tax refunds! Our Roth IRAs are on autopilot for maximum contributions as well, so we’re in pretty good shape as far as our retirement accounts go.

So when we got our (presumably last) huge federal tax return back the other day, I put a little into our house fund and decided to buy some shares of a Vanguard fund with the rest. This is the first time that I'll be investing in anything outside of our retirement accounts, but after reading up on various funds, researching tax implications and (of course) talking it over with my dad, it seemed like a good time to get started. Since I waited so long to really begin saving in earnest anyway, I just couldn't see the point of simply adding the cash to our house fund just to hit the (entirely arbitrary) savings goal I'd set when we first arrived at post.

So there you have it. I'm now not simply saving for retirement, but I'm actually an Investor. Feels pretty good!

January 2008 Net Worth Review

2008-01-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

Another bumpy month in the stock market, but overall not bad. I was able to start building up some cash in our emergency fund again after raiding it to pay for a little vacation in the States last month; my goal is to have at least a thousand dollars in our USAA savings account (it earns very little interest, but it is immediately available, so it really is more for emergencies than anything else. The bulk of our cash is in a CD with Countrywide and a money market account with Capital One, but those are more of what I consider to be our house fund than an emergency fund).

Some technical difficulties have prevented me from contributing as much to the TSP as I had planned, but I believe that those problems have been solved now, so hopefully our retirement balance will really start to grow in just a few weeks.

Overall, not bad growth--slowing down a lot from the heady days last fall, but still pretty good, I'd say.

An honor long overdue

2008-01-31T06:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I’m not a big fan of a lot of the stereotypes that people have about Wisconsin. Strangely, I don’t think that shirtless fat guys with Green Bay Packers helmets painted on their chests while wearing cheesehead hats show off our best side.

However, there are some things that you just gotta love.

Goal for 2008

2008-01-25T06:58:00.001-08:00

Well, this looks like it could be a very bumpy year for the market, and this is also the year that I’ll be maximizing our retirement contributions—we’ll be maxing out my TSP contributions as well as each of our Roths.

It is hard to keep from feeling a bit queasy about that, given how the year has started out and the fact that I keep dumping money into accounts that have been losing value week after week. Logically, of course, it just means that I’m getting more and more shares for my money, but logic and one’s money don’t always mix well.

Since I’m not looking to use this money for decades, I really don’t care what the market is doing right now—at least, that’s what I keep repeating to myself in order to remain calm!

So this year, I hope to bring our net worth up to 75K. That’s not asking for a lot of growth beyond our own contributions, but based on how things have started out this year, that may be just about right.

Yet another attack overseas

2008-01-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

Here's another example of the dangers American diplomats face overseas in general. To reiterate, Duncan Hunter is a dick.

R.I.P. John Granville

2008-01-03T06:52:00.000-08:00

As this article shows, being a Foreign Service Officer is dangerous enough anywhere. One could understand the reluctance of many to be sent to an actual war zone, as I noted earlier.

Duncan Hunter, some congressman from California, has referred to FSOs who are reluctant to serve in Iraq as “nervous nellies”. These nervous nellies get about 2 weeks of training and are unarmed. Duncan Hunter is a moronic ass.

December 2007 Net Worth Review

2008-01-02T05:46:00.000-08:00

Overall December was not a bad month, in spite of the rather large drop in cash due to a trip back to the States and the necessary shopping, eating out and so on that such a trip entails. Honestly, I had no choice but to go to Quizno's so often!

I also dumped a ton of cash into my Roth IRA, using my last opportunity to put money in there before the end of the year.

I've got to do something about my student loans; the pathetic reduction in the loan amount every month is just ridiculous. I have heard (maybe from Dave Ramsey?) that you should hate your debt, and believe me, I hate it (especially since it's our one outstanding debt). Nevertheless, my interest rate is only 3% with that loan, so it doesn't make any sense to pay it off right now when I'm earning more than that with interest. Plus, due to the fact that my next assignment will be to a hardship post, there's a chance that the Department of State will pay off part of my student loan, so logically there's very little that I should do about that loan right now. But boy, do I hate it.

Anyway, 3% growth for the month is nothing to sneeze at.

2007 in review

2007-12-30T09:07:00.001-08:00

Well, financially speaking this has been our best year ever. In the last year we've managed to pay off our car loan, raise my TSP contributions, open a Roth IRA for my wife, contribute to my own Roth and even put aside 25K for our emergency fund/house fund. As you might imagine, I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.

Next year promises to be even better, as I am going to quadruple my TSP contributions and max out our Roth contributions. This means that our house fund will not grow very much until I arrive at my new post in summer--we'll be getting a very high cost of living adjustment and some hardship pay, which will add more to my check every pay period, and at that point I plan to continue adding cash to our housing fund. Until we get to our new post, it might be kind of tight for a few months, but I think we can do it.

From Milwaukee to 6C1

2007-12-26T08:40:00.001-08:00

This is an interesting story.

Assuming a false identity like that earns you a permanent ineligibility for a visa, under section 212(a)(6)(c)(i), or "6C1" of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Sadly, when Wisconsin makes the news, it's usually not for anything good!

More about certified used cars, plus Kellogg's satanic product line

2007-12-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

In an unfortunate coincidence, I found out another side benefit of Honda’s certified used car program over the weekend. While on a quick trip to the States to visit my brother, his car battery died and he was able to get two jump starts on consecutive days (one to get us home after having dinner and one to get us to Sears for a new battery the next day), with no hassle and no charges at all, due to the roadside coverage he has with his certified used Honda. I was extremely impressed with how quickly they responded. There you have it, a personal endorsement!

I also noticed that you can buy something called “Cereal Straws” now in the States, which are apparently exactly what their name implies. This apparently allows parents to convince their kids to drink milk by making it sugary and less healthy, thus imbibing and avoiding healthy food at the same time. As a parent, I find that idea repugnant; as a proud Wisconsinite, I find this profanation of milk fricking evil!

Another reason to buy a used car

2007-12-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

Not only does it make better financial sense, but it could actually save your life. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of hyperbole. However, this article from Men’s Health details research into the chemicals that make up that “new car smell”—chemicals emitted by the material in the dashboard, the seats and so on, and which are not particularly benign. However, the article points out that after six months the car will have largely expended most of the emissions already, so the risk is much lower.

As is the risk to your pocketbook, of course. Personally, I’m a big fan of certified used vehicles—given the quality of many cars these days, there’s no reason that a used car can’t provide years of reliable use, especially if it’s been given an inspection and sold as certified, which generally means that the dealer has found it free of major problems (and typically includes some kind of warranty as well).

So you get the benefit of a nearly new car (years of reliable use) without the heartache of such steep depreciation, not to mention an interior that isn’t trying to kill you with noxious vapors. Pretty good deal!

Must be nice...

2007-12-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

So things in Madison, Wisconsin are apparently going so well that people can take the time and effort to worry about turkey bowling.

Now I’m not a turkey bowler, so I may not understand all the fine nuances of the sport, but I understand that it’s pretty much like regular bowling. Except with a turkey.

This offended some people, who felt that it was cruel and demeaning to the turkey. The dead, frozen turkey. Incidentally, the turkey bowlers were raising money for charity.

When your life is comfortable enough that you can spend your time and resources on protesting turkey bowling for charity, you have things pretty sweet compared to, oh, almost everybody else on earth!

Crybaby Nation

2007-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

So, after a national outcry, the federal government is planning to rescue over a million people from the mean, evil banks who lent them money. I don’t wish the loss of house and home on anybody, but at the same time, geez! Here’s a free piece of financial advice: If you take out an Adjustable Rate Mortgage, be aware that your rate may change. The clue is cleverly hidden in the word “adjustable”. Oh, and that adjustment? It may not adjust in your favor.

Will we bail out problem gamblers next? Surely they don’t mean to take chances with their money!

It’s been a long, steep fall from the Greatest Generation to Crybaby Nation, that’s for sure.

God bless you, Executive Order 11582

2007-12-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

It's always nice when you get Christmas presents from far away.

Net Worth Review November 2007

2007-12-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

Well, in spite of the bumpy market this month, I actually saw a gain in my retirement accounts, although that’s largely due to increased contributions—my Roth is underfunded for the year, so I tried to do some shopping and contribute more at some low points. In spite of the fact that trying to time the market is, quite arguably, dumb, I got lucky a couple of times and was able to buy some shares at relatively good prices.

Our high-interest money market account isn’t quite as high-interest as it used to be, so I’m shopping for CDs at the moment. Countrywide Bank seems to have a pretty good rate for 6-month CDs, although I’m a bit nervous about how the continuing housing collapse will affect Countrywide. Oh well, it’s FDIC insured!

Overall I’m pretty happy with the progress for the month (how could I be otherwise with over 5% growth this month?), although I expect to see much lower gains in the future (especially since this is the first month in which my figures are exact measurements instead of estimates). Nevertheless, even 1 percent growth a month is 12 percent a year, and if you’re patient, you can get rich that way. Must….be….patient!!

If you're going to travel overseas, please do this

2007-11-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

It happened again last week—I got a call about an American couple killed in a car accident, and when we tried to locate their next of kin, they had left the emergency contact section blank on their passport applications.

This happens all the time, and this moment of…well, laziness, has accounted for so much heartache, you wouldn’t believe it.

Under the best circumstances, it can sometimes be difficult to contact family members; when travelers tie our hands by not even giving us a name and phone number, it can be downright impossible.

If you have not yet applied for a passport, please fill in emergency contact information on your application. When you get your passport, fill in the emergency contact section within. And when you go overseas, register on the travel.state.gov website.

I don’t need you to fill in that information. But your next of kin do.

The Iraq problem

2007-11-23T08:31:00.000-08:00

Well, the Department of State has decided that it does not need to force Foreign Service Officers to serve in Iraq; apparently the mere threat of directed assignments shook loose enough volunteers to fill the positions.

It would be naïve to think that this is over; YouTube will undoubtedly preserve the emotion displayed at the town hall meeting for quite some time to come, and if you check out Dipnote you’ll see a really unseemly exchange of comments regarding the whole thing.

Plus, of course, the whole thing will probably be repeated again in a few months when the next bidders—those who are applying for jobs around the world—take their turn. Presumably, there won’t be a huge audience for the Baghdad positions at that point either.

I’m of two minds about the whole thing. We absolutely know that we’re to be available for duty worldwide. On the other hand, facing the same kinds of threats, we would have closed the Embassy in every other country in the world. It seems to me that the only reason the Embassy there is still open is that closing it would be a tacit admission that, gee, things really aren’t that great over there. And that seems like a pretty thin reason to me.

I don't know what we would have done

2007-11-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

Before getting my job with the State Department, I worked for several years at an unnamed Wisconsin company and my wife worked in retail. We personified the phrase “living paycheck to paycheck”—every month would be pretty much the same: I’d pay the rent on the first of the month and then there’d be a race to see which would run out first—the remaining money or the days in the month. More times than I care to remember, we almost ended up with more days than money.

We found out about her pregnancy about one month before I got The Call, as FSO wannabes refer to it, meaning the invitation to join the Foreign Service. This means that I really didn’t have time to think about how having a baby would impact our finances, but in retrospect I shudder to think about what things would be like if I hadn’t gotten this job (by the way, this is a truly great job for many reasons and I encourage everybody to check it out here).

The biggest benefit for us is clearly the paid housing when working overseas—the disappearance of that huge monthly bill has allowed us to pay off our car, open Roth IRAs for both of us (as well as increasing my TSP contributions—the Thrift Savings Plan is essentially the federal government’s version of a 401k), start saving for college for the kid and save a big chunk of change for a house down payment—all in the course of a year. Yeah, yeah, I know—our measly net worth isn’t exactly the Envy of All Who See It, but whaddaya want? That’s what happens when a slacker puts on his responsible pants and starts making up for lost time.

I heart USAA

2007-11-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

Time was when I had an account with Associated Bank, which is a large bank in the Midwest and perhaps elsewhere. I had actually started out with a smaller Wisconsin bank named First Federal, which was as friendly and nice a business as you could imagine for a bank. However, Associated bought out First Federal a few years ago, and things definitely took on more of a Serious Bank feel, which meant, among other things, no more ads with the bank president wearing silly hats, and more cumbersome processes for certain things that First Federal had done easily.

Whatever. At the time we didn’t have much need beyond your bare-bones banking, so we kept our checking and savings accounts (not that we used the latter very much) at Associated, and things went as well as could be expected, even when we went out to DC for training. The few unusual things I needed to do were handled over the phone, and I didn’t see much reason to switch banks.

Then we went overseas, and Associated Bank raised its ugly foreign transaction fee head. Every month, I was spending several dollars in foreign transaction fees just by taking money out of an ATM, and suddenly I found myself with “service fees” all over the place. Needless to say, I closed that account as soon as I could find a suitable replacement. Did I say “suitable”? How about the best bank I’ve ever had?

While membership is not open to everybody, if you can, you should avail yourself of the opportunity to join USAA. Here are a few reasons why I love my bank so much:

Free accounts. No service fees to be found. In fact, we even get interest on our checking account as well as our savings account there—it’s not much, but it sure beats paying for the service. I’m actually getting paid to have accounts that I need to have anyway, and you can’t beat that.

Free checks. That’s right—not free starter checks, but free checks forever. Granted, I don’t use checks very much anymore (does anyone?), but because the State Department moves us around every couple of years, our mailing address changes fairly frequently. I can get updated checks any time I need to, easily ordered online.

No fees for out of network ATMs anywhere. Not only does USAA not charge you , but they actually reimburse you when other banks charge you for using an ATM. Worldwide. USAA’s members are mostly military, who like us FSOs can end up spending a lot of time overseas, so this is huge for us.

Absolutely great customer service. When you call them, they actually sound like they’re genuinely happy you called, and by the time you’re done with your call, you’re in a good mood too. Does your bank do that for you?

Introduction

2007-11-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Badgers in Exile! Here's a bit about the blog:

1) I am a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Department of State. In other words, a diplomat. Yes, I'm as surprised as anybody, but it's true. I will write from time to time about the Department, the process of becoming an FSO, and the work that American diplomats do overseas.

2) I am a recovering debtor. My wife and I lived paycheck to paycheck for a very long time and we were simply spinning our wheels, as I imagine many--if not most--Americans are doing. In the last year we've made significant changes and this blog will track our progress, as well as point out items related to personal finance that you may find useful.

3) We're from the great state of Wisconsin. The more I travel in the U.S. and abroad, the more I'm convinced that Wisconsin's the Best. Place. Ever.