The Financial Shift

In the novel I’m writing, my heroine enters a restroom where she finds a dead body. She feels as though the world has tipped on its axis, plummeting her into a nightmare where her life will never be the same. Of course, that’s a novel, but in many ways, what we’re experiencing feels the same way. 

The world has shifted; the days of extra money and easy living are gone, and most of us have added the stress of unemployment or job insecurity to our lives.  We wonder about tomorrow; hope that we’ll be able to pay the bills; realize the mistakes we’ve made and decide to change our spending and saving habits. We hope that when all is said and done, we really won’t mind the changes we’re being forced to make in our lives. 

Of course, what’s been dubbed “irrational exuberance” and permeated many of our lives is over. I look at the $700 drapes in my bedroom and know that I’ll never spend that sort of money on “window treatments” again. 

In many ways, the financial shift is bringing me back to my roots. How I was raised. I’m watching the pennies, looking for the bargains, realizing that I really can live without a lot of the things that catch my eye. This newly discovered financial caution may not last. But the more frugal me doesn’t mind eating leftovers and pulling old clothes out of the closet. I don’t even mind finding bargains at Goodwill. 

I just wonder if this is part of the adventure or the life that I will be living going forward. 

© Judy Kane 2009

STAMPS

I got out a stamp this morning and realize how much I hate having to deal with mailing snail mail. I know the Post Office is considering the idea of reducing mail delivery to only weekdays, and I wonder how I’ll feel about that.

I like getting mail. It comes everyday at about 2:30, and the dogs have a barking fit. Of course, the mail lady is scared to death of my dogs. But the dogs love the opportunity to raise justifiable hell for a few minutes.

We need mail and the Postal Service, but something makes me wonder about how much longer it will be able to continue. Most of us live on e-mail and spam rather than snail mail and junk. On the other hand, I can’t mail books without some sort of physical delivery process, and the cost using the Post Office’s media mail is very reasonable. Of course, there are always e-books.

© Judy Kane 2009

Now Is The Time to Change Proposition 13!

We need to use this recession to create positive changes for the future. One of these is to make changes to Proposition 13. No, Proposition 13 should not be changed to affect residential property. That idea is so unpopular that it can’t even be discussed rationally. Instead, now is the time to split the tax roles into residential and commercial properties.

Proposition 13 was passed by the California voters in 1978 to keep older homeowners from losing their homes because of the increases in property taxes due to the inflation of home values. Proposition 13 uses the purchase price or market value at the time the property was purchased, then limits the increase in the property tax valuation to 2% per year with a property tax rate of 1%.

Of course, property owners have the right to appeal the tax valuation if the market value is lower than the value on the tax rolls. But since residential property rarely lost value in California before the last few years, most homeowners didn’t know or need to know about the appeals process.

But since the value of commercial property, such as office buildings, shopping centers and warehouses, is based on the income from the tenants of the properties, the commercial real estate market is more volatile and fluctuates up and down in a cyclical pattern. Commercial property owners have always known about and used the ability to appeal tax valuations to reduce their property taxes. The problem is that once the appeal to reduce the property tax valuation is competed, the maximum increase in property tax valuation for any property is 2% a year, whether the commercial real estate market is booming or not. So commercial property uses this reassessment process to keep property taxes artificially low. Commercial real estate has been enjoying this protection since Proposition 13 was passed in spite of the fact that most people are not aware of this benefit.

Now is the time to adjust the inappropriateness of Proposition 13’s valuation protection for commercial properties. With property values already low, let’s adjust all commercial property tax valuations to the market value and let the tax valuations fluctuate with the market value of the properties. This would allow an increase in property tax income in good times from commercial properties, and with only a 1% property tax rate, without a hardship on the commercial property owners.

© 2009 Judy Kane

What Room Do You Live In?

According to Rumer Godden, we live in a house of four rooms: Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual. In thinking about this, I know that I have friends and acquaintances who are always analyzing things - the mental room; always dragged down by worrying about things - the emotional room; or looking to the spiritual for help and support. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to know anyone who is in the physical room. Although when my husband gets on his running jag, he can be very dedicated. 

The more I thought about these rooms, the more I realized how being stuck or focused on only one room is so limiting. The people who analyze everything that happens don’t let themselves live in the moment and enjoy the emotion as they come. Those who are wrapped up in emotions, especially the negative ones, limit what they see, and don’t allow themselves to analyze their lives and rejoice in the good there. 

The spiritual, giving of oneself and looking to a higher power to help with everything, can be draining when overdone. And excess in exercise can be another form of escape. (“What are you running from?” I ask my husband. “A heart attack,” is his standard answer, but sometimes I wonder ...)

I don’t know why, but I do know that when I move from room to room, I’m more productive, happier, and, I hope, more balanced. If nothing else, I can stop and smell the roses (emotional and spiritual) while cutting off the dead flowers (physical), and determining when to fertilize again (mental).