Month: December 2016

Vineyard Roots > 2016 > December

Budget & Living – Part 2

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Hello all, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I certainly did, I received most of the gifts I asked for and a majority of them are gifts that make my life better and not clutter it up. I asked for a ceramic coffee mill and some tools, both of which I received from my family.  These gifts are useful to me because I enjoy fresh delicious coffee in the morning and I like to do my own car repairs, so the tools are really handy. I also for the first time did not receive any clothes! I am a big proponent of keeping wardrobes simple and efficient by getting rid of clothes I never use after a year. But enough of that! There will be more on decluttering and efficient living down the road. Today, we talk for the second time about budgets and living.

I would like to bring my thoughts back to living simply through a budget and also trying to minimize the “cost of running our business” – aka the family. I talked before about having a budget and breaking it down between items that are necessary and items that can be reduced. Necessary things in a budget would be a rent/mortgage payment, health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, savings, future payments for cars or other big ticket items, utilities, etc. These items are things I like to set in stone right away, and then build the remaining budget with discretionary items, which are items I like to try to reduce.

To start, first take a look at your income. I am going to do all of my budget calculations with a $50,000 sample income. This is a good example income for a below average American two earner household or an above average individual American income. Other income amounts can be used too, but I want to keep this budget as realistic as possible. Substitute in your own income and adjust accordingly. As you will see, the total income does not matter, since we are going to exercise our budget in terms of percentage spent on each category.

Take that sample $50k income and look at your take home income, or “after tax” income. This is the money you earn each week, bi-weekly or monthly. Regardless of your payment schedule, take that after tax income and equate it out to what you would make in one month. In my example, the person making $50k would take home $3000/month, or make $36,000 a year take home after tax. Note: depending on your household and filing status, most people will receive a partial tax refund for “overpaying” each month. We can talk about taxes another day. For now, just remember that our example is making $3000/month to budget for. Any tax refund is then extra money to be used for other purposed come June the following year.

Our example income earner makes $3000 per month to budget for. Let’s look at this person’s mandatory expenses they must budget for each month. Say for our person, they have one car with a car payment, a small rental apartment, insurance for the apartment and car, utilities to pay for at the home and their employer has an 401k retirement matching program. Their employer also has a health care sharing program through the company. Also, don’t forgot those student loans!

These mandatory expenses work out to be:

  • Health insurance at work = $100
  • 401k Retirement plan at work: 3% of yearly salary = $125
  • Rent = $1200
  • Car payment = $200
  • Rental/car insurance bundle = $145
  • Utilities (electric, water, heating) = $200
  • Student Loans = $400

Total: $2370/mo in mandatory expenses

Remaining budget: $630! Wow look how fast basic American living can destroy a budget and how mandatory spending can account for about 80% of a person’s income.

As you take a look at the above breakdown, can you find any ways to reduce the budget? I can. The person can reduce or eliminate their car payment by saving for and driving a car older than 6 years old. Even if they had to take out a car loan for the car, it would be significantly cheaper to have a lower payment on a less expensive car. Plus, the cheaper, used car would also have less of an insurance burden, which would lower the car insurance cost.

A big stickler with my own household is utilities. Note the $200 per month utility bill. Note how I also did not include cable TV and internet connection as a utility. I do not believe these are utilities, as they are still a luxury in my book (that is notwithstanding I still purchase both of these in my own home). In my own house, I try my hardest to lower the utility burden. This can be as simple as buying LED light bulbs and replacing every incandescent (old fashioned) or florescent (spiral type) bulbs. The incandescent bulbs use 90% of their energy as waste heat and the florescent bulbs use 30% of their energy as waste heat (plus they have mercury inside them which is toxic if the bulb breaks). LED bulbs only use 10% of the former in energy usage which will drastically cut the electricity bill. Utilities can further be reduced by turning off lights and appliances, and even turning down the heat in the winter (up for AC in the summer). My utilities range from $145 in the winter (oil heat cost) to $75 in the summer, all by me and my wife trying the most to follow these simple steps.

By driving an older car and lowering the car payment, in addition to being smart with home utilities, you can save up to $167 per month. That extra $167 can easily pay for an average cable TV/internet bundle and a $40/month smart phone plan. Conversely, you can add even a $100 from your new savings to your company 401k plan each month and save 5.4% of your income instead of 3%. Together with the 3% 401k company match, you will be saving 8.4% a year-which is an excellent way to manage your money (and probably a better rate of savings than most people).

I hope you enjoyed the simple breakdown of “mandatory spending” in budget planning. Soon, I will tackle the more fluid “discretionary spending” part of the budget – where we will discuss the usage of the remaining $630 left per month. We will also run a scenario with the more cost conscious mandatory spending I proposed earlier and add that savings to our discretionary spending.

How to Propagate: Italian Cypress and Atlantic White Cedar

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Today I’d like to show you how to propagate plants. I plan to propagate Mediterranean (Italian) Cypress and Atlantic White Cedar. These are two of my favorite plants and its never a bad idea to try to have more of them.

Propagation is the process of creating new plants from existing plants. If you like to garden, or are a plant nut like me, propagating your existing plants to have more of them or even trade them is a fun pastime. It really does not take too long, just 15 minutes of work and some patience.

Like I said before, the Mediterranean Cypress and Atlantic White Cedar are two of my favorite plants. The Cypress, cupressus sempervirens (also known as Italian Cypress), and White Cedar, chamaecyparis thyoides, (aka Whitecedar), are in the same genus, or group, of plants. Italian Cypress is a famous tall, slender evergreen tree with scaly needles. The Whitecedar is also a tall, somewhat more full tree with scaly needles. Cypress grows in Mediterranean climates, or in places with artificial irrigation, similar to Arizona or California. The Whitecedar grows along the Eastern Seaboard, from Maine to Florida, in swamps and bottomlands. The Whitecedar is also evergreen. Both trees are used as ornamentals in the garden, with Cypress being used extensively in climates that it can survive. The Cypress is reportably hardy to 0 deg F, while the Whitecedar is considerably hardier, to below -20 deg F.

To propagate these trees, first gather cuttings. Cuttings should be taken in the winter on younger trees. If a young tree is not available, take a cutting from a low branch. The theory is that a low branch will have more natural rooting tendencies. When taking cuttings from the Whitecedar, be sure to take only a few. Atlantic White Cedars were once common in large tracts in their original range, however logging has reduced their range to 30% of its extent. The wood is waterproof and was highly sought after in the colonial days. Being that the tree usually grew in pure stands, with most being perfectly straight, it was a logger’s easy picking to cut many of them down. So, take only a few cuttings and let the native tree be.

First, gather the supplies. You will need scissors (or a knife), plant material, water, rooting hormone, potting mix, a pot, and a plastic zip-lock bag. Snip the cuttings down to 4″-6″ high individuals. Find individuals with stems that are 1″ to 2″ long, so they can adequately stand upright in the soil. If there are leaves near the bottom 2″ of the stem, remove them so the stem is bare. Set your desired cuttings aside.

Prepare the potting mix. The mix should be a well draining but decent water retentive mix. This seems like an oxymoron, such as “what soil drains water quickly but still holds water?” Crazy talk, or not. Perlite and peat moss are a good solution to what we are looking for. Taking 50% perlite and 50% peat moss, combine both into a pot and mix thoroughly. The perlite is a volume filler, allowing large pours that have air. These pores allow water to drain quickly, not saturating the roots and potentially causing rot. The peat moss on the other hand is like a sponge, it holds water well. Together, the two soils form a great medium for root development, which is exactly what we are trying to do with plant propagation. There is no worry for over watering, but some water is always retained helping roots grow.

Take the potting mix and run it under the faucet to thoroughly saturate the mix. Stop filling water when water begins to drip from the bottom of the pot. Set the potting mix inside the plastic zip-lock bag. Next, pour some rooting hormone onto the table, or paper towel in my example. Dip each cutting in water, then into the rooting hormone powder. Tap each cutting to remove excess powder from caking the cutting, as excess powder will only hurt the roots from growing rather than help. Take another cutting, or use a pointy object (pen or pencil) and poke the soil to form a cavity. Place the cutting in the cavity, then gently tamp down the soil around the cutting to ensure there is no voids under the soil.

Finish up with the same procedure for the remaining cuttings. In my example, I used a 6″ diameter pot, which I felt comfortable filling with 2 large cuttings and 2 small cuttings.

The finished product should look like above. Close the zip-lock bag and set in a bright but indirect light window. Direct sunlight will burn the cuttings. The bag temperature should be between 60-75 degs, the warmer the better. Once a week, feel the soil with your finger. If it is bone dry, add a little more water. Try to avoid adding too much water, as this will cause mold or rot.

Over the years, I have been successful on a number of occasions with this method. Other times, I get mold and brown twigs. As with most plant endeavors, it seems like a 30-40% chance of success is normal. Don’t worry though, as over time you will refine your method. There is a great feeling gently tugging on your cuttings after 5-6 weeks and feeling a small resistance-this means that the rooting was successful! I wish you the best of luck with propagating these evergreens.

Look forward in the future for more plant propagation tips. There are many other methods of plant propagation that I would be happy to write about and demonstrate. I will also create a follow-up post in a few weeks to notify you of any of my new baby plants.