What is your dream entry-level job?

Mine is working in a hotel. Not kidding. I wouldn't even mind cleaning the rooms. Not that I would do a good job, but I wouldn't mind it. Sometimes I even do the triangle fold trick with the toilet paper in my bathroom when I clean it (which is more often now, thanks to Flylady.net) so it looks like it's been cleaned by someone else. I would put little paper covers on my water glasses in the bathroom if I had them (paper covers/glasses for that matter).

We are going to Rome tomorrow and staying at Giorgia's hotel downtown. It's a 5-minute walk from the Vatican. I wish I worked there.  I could make a really killer all-you-can-eat Continental breakfast.

Her hotel is called La Rovere and I recommend it. Tell Giorgia Karoline sent you.

It's Unicredit's dang fault...

If I can't get my taxes paid on-time. In theory (and in practice in the past) I can pay my taxes on-line. But for some reason I can't scroll down the page, which is really long. That means I can only tab down and it jumps me right up to the top so I can't enter the info.
HOW ANNOYING!! I'm already annoyed that I have to pay them at all, and now I can't get the stupid site to work?? So I assumed the system was down... YESTERDAY. But today it doesn't work either.

UGH!!!

BTW who knows when these taxes are due anyway. All I know is it's sometime in November. Encouraging.

Ok Let's be fair here

I did not mean to say that garages IN GENERAL are not a good investment. I meant to say that THIS PARTICULAR GARAGE might be a little pricey.

I just don't think the 65,000 euro garage or 55,000 euro parking spot is a great investment when you can rent a spot for about 120 euros per month on the next block. Even considering appreciation would you ever really get your money back on that one?

Now, if you got, say, a 15,000 euro parking spot somewhere just a little bit out of town (but will soon be considered in town), it might make more sense.

If I had 65,000 euros, sigh, I would probably want to buy a small studio apartment downtown and rent it out. Perhaps that would appreciate in value just a bit more (but cost more to maintain as well). And, as long as there are apartments in that price range and as many Italians are living alone as there are, it just seems a little more sexy as an investment opportunity.

But that's just me.

Since we are on the subject

I found out last week from a friend with a bed and breakfast and a vacation apartment he rents out that you can have up to FIVE rental properties without having to open up a tax number. That means that you only pay 20 percent tax on the rent you receive (much cheaper than, say, income tax) and you don't have to pay an accountant every month-- you can just make that same yearly appointment you've always made. Not a bad idea to up your income (listen up, low earners like myself!) especially at a time when it's not really clear where to put your money (especially in Italy). Italians still say bricks and mortar are the way to go.

Garage not such a good investment

The trend around these parts over the last couple of years has been to buy up small garages and parking spaces and rent them out. Low maintenance and there is definitely a market for parking... if you can get one at a decent price.

At last night's financial group for fun meeting (I need to come up with some kind of catchy name for it) we found out that a small garage downtown Trieste is going for 65,000 euros!! A parking space nearby is going for 55,000! How long would it take to get your money back on that investment?? According to one member's calculations, only 40 years!

Hmmm. Don't think I will be jumping on that bandwagon anytime soon! The trick seems to be to INHERIT a parking garage or take a groundfloor warehouse and convert it into a garage for several cars. That could make sense.

Last Tax Payment for this Year

Hoorray (hmmph!)! With this last payment of 1,000 euros, I will have paid exactly 45% tax on my earnings for last year. I was pregnant for most of it, but I worked up to 1 and a half weeks before delivery (I worked past my due date because Sugar was born two weeks late) and started working two weeks after. My revenue was about 10,000 euros (don't work, don't get paid, although I worked a hell of a lot for that money, I must say, much more than I would have liked). So I got to keep 6500 of it (woo hoo).

I am telling you this so that if you're one of those people who complain about libero professionistas not paying their share of taxes, you will think again. We pay lots of taxes, we don't get sick pay or maternity (we pay in, but from the experience of one of our financial club members, she got more money as an unemployed person after her first child than as a contributing professional for her second) and have no guarantees that we will make enough money to pay our accountants at the end of the year.

The same people who complain say things like "But you can work under the table" as if regular employees can't. Many do. Anyone can work under the table. It does not mean that Libero Professionistas are doing it more than anyone else.

By the way, if I asked my accountant how much I pay in taxes, or how much to put aside, he would not say "put aside 45%" he would give me a barrage of numbers like 18% here, 21% here, 4% paid by clients, half as a downpayment for next year based on last year, etc. But what it comes down to is this: I have to take my already miserable earnings and half them if I want to be realistic about my take home.

That is my thought for my Italian friends with safe and steady jobs (god bless ya!). To my American friends who think Italy is a great place to work because of amazing benefits, gazillion-year maternity leave, etc. I remind you of this.

For others who say "If it sucks so much there, why do you stay?" I remind you of this.

I have a great life here.

10 minute crappy art project lives up to name

I promised myself I would take 10 minutes a day to do some crappy art, since I felt like I wasn't using my hands for anything useless anymore, and it was time to.

So I took a ball-point pen and my journal and doodled for 10 minutes. It was great, my only rule was to respect my time limit and to fill up the page. At the beginning I was a little blocked like I sometimes am when I start writing, so I just drew what I saw around me. Baby toy, baby bottle, then some waves and lines and leaves and I connected them with my new experimental fake liberty font hand-writing. I felt like I was in middle school again, doodling during classes. And since it wasn't a special pen or anything, there was no expectation that it had to be anything other than crap. No pressure. Just doodling and getting it out.

I loved it.

This came on while I was writing

It's by the Decemberists, and I love a song with my name in it (doesn't everyone?) Just add ten to my age and we're there.

THE RAINCOAT SONG

Caroline, you're angry 'cause you sleep like a spinster and you're twenty-eight
You've been thinking lately you couldn't catch a cold
Bend your head double in the goose down, piling all the pillows high
Heave your fiercest sigh and see if that'll work

And the raincoat that you wore when it rained today
And the raincoat that you wore when it rained today
I think it only made it rain more
I think it only made it rain the more

And if the water's all wickin' up your pant-leg, better wear your britches tight
I should teach you right to be so down at heel
Going off half-cocked, not shot full of arrows from the cherubim
Oh, the nerve of them to not draw their bows

And the raincoat that you wore when it rained today
And the raincoat that you wore when it rained today
I think it only made it rain more
I think it only made it rain the more       

The Glass is half full though

The reason for that last post was that I got a new contract that I started today, which is pretty great, especially since I need to bring home some pancetta to the chitlins...

And to reward myself for a job well done including hopping into the car and going out into the middle of nowhere with it and not getting lost, I made my favorite food for lunch: ravioli (from a big bag) with tomato sauce (from a big jar), and for dinner: chicken (from the freezer) curry (well, I made the sauce because I can follow directions). Sweetie is working late, little chitlin fell asleep early (never happened before, ever, except last night, which makes me think this MIGHT be a NEW TREND?!) so I did the other thing I love to do these days: listen to my old college radio station.

And, surprise, it's still good, even though I'm something like 20 years older than I should be to listen to it.

And it makes me feel just a little bit like I'm in America, which I miss sometimes. Especially when I hear college radio.

It's harder than ever to ask to be paid

I can do it, but I find it embarassing lately and I second-guess myself. In fact, when people ask me to give them an estimate on a job, I give the same prices (I haven't changed them in a really long time) I always do, but where a few years ago I felt completely comfortable talking about it, now I feel embarassed and a little voice in my head says "Is this too much?" I think this feeling is leftover from when Hubby wasn't working. I feel a heightened sense of empathy for others who may be experiencing their own problems. The problem is that I have this default feeling with EVERYONE, even those I KNOW are NOT having problems. I need to get over it, find my worth again. But it's not easy. I think I need to listen to tapes (because these things are always on TAPES, not on CDs) with ocean waves and positive mantras in a calming voice while I fall asleep "YOU ARE WORTH MILLIONS OF EUROS" "THE MONEY IS OUT THERE FOR THE TAKING" "SUCCESS IS INFINITE"

or perhaps just this one over and over:

"GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR *SS!! QUIT WORRYING ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE'S FINANCIAL SITUATION AND BRING HOME SOME BACON, SISTER!!"

It's the little things

This morning, Sweetie, Sugar, Luna and I went for a walk downtown. Our mission was to find a pair of warm jammies for Sugar to wear this winter. See, now that she's wearing 18-month old clothes (yeah, she's 11 months), all those gifts and hand-me-downs no longer work.

First we went to a baby store that is supposed to have things like this. We were greeted by a very snotty woman who told us with a roll of the eyes as if our question was just SUCH A WASTE OF TIME and a HUGE INTERRUPTION from her folding that we would have to go upstairs. Okay. We have baby, dog and stroller. Where is the elevator (this is a baby store, after all, and they sell strollers upstairs). There isn't one. Mmmm. Okay. So we leave the stroller downstairs and go up to see the pajamas.

We were greeted by a young woman who showed us where the pajamas were and when we said we wanted to look at 18 months she took out the 9-12 month size like TWICE and then, when I told her I was looking for something a little warmer than the cotton one she was holding up, she was like "Um. Can I just tell you, you can't GET any warmer than CHENILLE*" and I was like "Um. That's COTTON, the (way too small one) next to it is chenille. Got THAT one any bigger?" "No."

Is it possible to work in a baby store and not know the difference between regular cotton and fuzzy chenille? Whatever.

We come down just in time to see the SNOTTY lady SCREAM at one of her colleagues for being an idiot (and surprise, it wasn't our genius from upstairs). Not pretty.

So then we go to H&M, which is like the IKEA for clothes. And there were like ANGELS singing in there the second we walked in and they had EVERYTHING you could ever want and super cheap. So we got the jammies, a couple of shirts, and some non-slip socks for like HALF the price of the Chenille Cotton jammies at the other place.

Then we decided to really splurge and go out to lunch and then we went to another place for coffee. I tried to remember the last time we went out for a coffee. I was talking to my friend Fabia about that yesterday. I was telling her that I make like NO money but that I feel a lot richer than I did when I made more money, and she was like "yeah, it's the little things, isn't it? It's going out for coffee every day, buying the Piccolo to see what's going on. It's those things that really get you. You've got to watch the little expenses."

*Note to self: in English we call this material VELOUR but I couldn't think of that word when I was writing this. Poor folks' velvet? I don't know, but it's warm.

What is missing in my life

I know it's a bit morbid,  but our book tells you to pretend you only have six months to live. You're supposed to write about what you would be doing, whom you would be with, etc. When it came up last night I didn't have much of a reaction to it until I heard what the others were saying they would do more of. The girls working in offices said they would immediately take sabbaticals (not quit) and travel around the world. The independents said they would continue doing their same work (including me) up to the end. I said I would get a small simple apartment (sans clutter of my current abode) in the city with lots of light (I have now decided it must have a fireplace).

I've been thinking about the question a lot today, though, and realized that there is one part of myself that I am doing nothing with these days: art. I think I should be doing some. My excuses for this are that I haven't done anything creative with my hands in so long I probably suck now, I am rusty, I would make crap.

So...

I have decided that I will allow myself to make crappy art every day for 10 minutes. Then, hopefully, I will get better until I make something less crappy and less crappy. I can afford ten minutes. Making crap in ten minutes doesn't feel like I'm wasting THAT much time, and, who knows, perhaps it will give me some much-missed creative satisfaction.

Hurrah for creating crap!

Personal Finance for Smarties

Yesterday's women's financial group meeting was really interesting. It was so encouraging to share ideas. There was a lot of talk about buying a second piece of property as an investment. Our friend talked about how she bought three apartments (one at a time) in Cash! I loved what she had to say about saving money and upping your earnings and socking the extra in the bank. I also wrote this down in my notebook.

DON'T BE EMBARASSED TO MAKE A LOW OFFER.

I appreciated her openness to talk about numbers, how much things cost, etc. This is something I have noticed-- people who are comfortable with money don't mind telling you how much they spend on things. And it makes you able to open up about numbers because you know no one is going to judge you or make comments about it being too high or too low, etc.

We are so programmed NOT to talk about financial details (especially women, I am convinced it is a plot to keep us lower on the payscale) that it feels a little bit like getting naked when you actually start talking about them.

But it is also liberating to know that you CAN face the numbers in front of other people, and you feel better afterwards.

Everyone in our group has a different financial situation yet we still have a lot in commont. Desire to do well financially, self-doubt when it comes to managing financial matters, but also the other pressures we have in our lives.

We decided to meet again next week and talk more about the book we're reading. I am going to spend some time today doing the writing exercises, I think. I feel energized and excited.

The Paperwork

For the next step of the sale we need to gather some documentation. The most important paper is the one saying that Sweetie and I are married but we have something called SEPARAZIONE DEI BENI, which means that our assets are separate. That means that anything we buy in my name is mine, in his name his, even if the marriage (gulp gulp) disolves. Besides acting as a sort of pre-nup, this option (you make the decision when you get hitched here during the civil ceremony) also means that you are considered separate when it comes to the status of having a "first" house. Actually this doesn't mean the first house you buy, it just means "not your second or vacation or rental property" so you can buy 5 first houses in a row. As long as you get rid of the one before, your new one is considered your first. And this one has certain tax exemptions. Like no property tax. When you buy a second house or apartment, you pay that and other taxes and have higher rates on just about every utility bill. To get around this legally, and Italy is all about getting around things legally, this second apartment will be in my name instead of my husband's. That way we have a house each. Except when I say HOUSE I mean APARTMENT. Now I need to get the piece of paper that says we're married but that our assets our separate.

Now, where the hell do I get that? I asked myself this morning. Then I found out by doing a little Googling. You go to the Ufficio Civica, which just happens to be on a piazza right next to the grocery store I always go to, a 5 minute walk from my house. Not that it's ever open when it could be useful (like when I'm not working) but at least it's close and if I can't get in at least I can go next door and get some prosciutto.

From there, we need to get a "CIRCULAR CHECK" for the downpayment of the apartment and wait for our seller to get a document from his doctor saying that he's in his right mind and is not being tricked into selling his place.

Then it's back to the notaio for more documents, signatures, contracts, and another BIG CHECK for us to write.

Seem to be getting closer to the sale!

We are getting really close to buying that apartment I was telling you about. In English we call it a reverse mortgage. This means that we buy the apartment with someone living in it but we have no rights to the place until the occupant (gulp) dies. This is good for the seller because he gets a big chunk of money to live on, especially if he has no one to pass the place on to. It's good for us because we get the apartment at a reduced rate.

This thing has been going on forever. We have had to do lots of talking and talking and talking to make sure we're doing the right thing. Of course the seller was hoping to just leave the house to us and get the chunk of money without giving us anything in return except the promise that he would leave it to us (um. I don't think so) and we are already choking at the idea of making a second house payment every month without even having keys to the place. So I guess the extra time hasn't hurt us too much, since it gave us more time to make sure we can afford it. We can, but only if we continue to live frugally. Hubby has already said that if this deal goes through we will take a big ole vacation somewhere in December! They went to the notaio yesterday, who turned out to be a swell guy and spelled out exactly how to do this thing in a way that benefits both parties.

Hopefully all will go okay. Because if it does, in a few years we will have paid off two apartments, well worth making a few sacrifices now. Will keep you updated.

Money Group Meeting One

Last Thursday I invited a very nice accountant to come to our association to talk to whomever was interested (mostly my teacher friends with VAT numbers or others looking into getting one) about changes to VAT numbers for next year and answer our questions. We wanted to get straight answers instead of the eye-rolling I get from my own accountant whenever I ask him something. Here's what I learned.

1. Italian accounting is ambiguous.
2. Accountants don't understand everything.
3. In three more years I'm going to have to change VAT type and pay EVEN MORE for taxes and accounting.
4. When looking for an accountant in Italy the question to ask is "How much will COMPLETE SERVICE cost me per year?" This will protect us from hidden costs.
5. Tax deadlines change every year (WHAT?!). That explains why I am always late, I guess. Why not just do April 15??

Some positive things came out too. For example, we had similar questions and issues, so we have lots to talk about. We already set a date for this week to do the exercises from the first chapter of Overcoming Underearning. Our accountant friend will come back in about a month or so for a follow-up.

I loved our group this week. The girls who stayed after to make a plan for next week are just the types I want to hang out with to learn more about getting smart about personal finance.

Secrets to the Association's Turn-around

I'm on a bit of a high this week after a great turn-out last Thursday for both a volunteer meeting (now we have over 25 and what an amazing group of positive people!) at the Association and the official presentation of our activities for 2011-2012. A year ago we were happy if we got 10 or 15 (on a really good day) people to attend our little events. Last week we had over 70 people (Denise says it was more like 100) come just to hear what we have planned for the season. There were folks spilling out into the next room (and filling it up!). Wow. What a difference from last year. The exciting part was how many people came who didn't know us.

Now it's time to reflect on what is making all this good stuff possible. Last year, our first priority was to get out of debt. At the same time, we had to think about GROWTH which we hoped would be the key to getting us out of debt faster. To do this we had to put a little team together even before it was really necessary.

When things were going lousy, we formed a special group of volunteers (people who were with us already and others we talked into volunteering with us because they were friends and had special skills that we needed) and gave each person a responsability/ies (accounting, communications, IT, legal, PR, fund raising, volunteers). Now that these people have a year of experience doing their thing, it has made it easier to organize new volunteers into groups with a mentor.

We started communicating differently with our volunteers and our members in general. For one thing, we eliminated our website as an unnecessary expense and started blogging. At that point we got a fair amount of criticism for this, but our Association blog has gotten over 17,000 hits in the last year. Lots more traffic than our boring, static site did. Having 3 administrators on it means that it is constantly being updated, and that keeps people coming back to it and reminds them we are still around. I had a great moment of satisfaction yesterday when someone came in to renew their membership and didn't want the printed info on our film series because he checks the blog "religiously."

We also send out a very simple, no frills newsletter every month with our upcoming events. The difference this year is that we made this the responsibility of our IT guru volunteer rather than having it done by just anyone and having 98% of them returned as spam. We try to get it out no later than the first week of the month and always BEFORE the first event on the calendar.

For all of our paid activities (English and Italian courses) we now offer a no obligation presentation in our library in order to explain what we offer, costs, introduce our teachers and methods, and answer questions. Since it is a free presentation (and therefore not in competition with language schools who pay for advertising), the newspaper prints the news the morning of the presentation (a surprising number of people come at a moment's notice).

The big winner for our Association's turn-around: TRANSPARENCY. We pay all of our teachers the same hourly wage (I'm sure we are the only ones in Trieste to do this) and we charge the same amount per hour for all of our courses. If you ask any of us anything about prices, we will tell you the same thing. Our teachers are the only ones who get paid at our Association, and only for the hours they teach. Our teachers are also volunteers, making us a completely volunteer-run non-profit association.  There is something very cool about the atmosphere that creates.

As the director, I am also a volunteer because I decided not to take the small, part-time stipend that came with the position. Since I need to bring home the bacon from other sources, I have to be efficient, that's for sure, but it's better for morale when no one gets paid.

One more secret to the Association's turn-around? We made the Association a place we would want to hang out. We got a good coffee maker (donated by illycaffè here in Trieste), put a changing table in the bathroom, used our US gov grant money last year to make a comfy children's library to cuten things up a bit and filled the place up with friends who attract more friends. The place is bustling with activity now-- people coming in for books and dvds and just to hang out.

There is still a lot of work to do, of course but things are finally looking up for us. If we can double our membership from last year, we will pay off our debts in January and really be on our way to a future of good things. We need to sell 600 memberships by the end of October. This will pay for our film series and not much else, but it will be enough to get us to our goal. Then we will plan for more growth.