Forgot to give this a title…there.

It being Christmas, and me making the command decision not to work so darn much for a bit, I’ve entered total (mostly online) shopping mode, and it is getting pretty ugly. I’ve been rationalizing it by telling myself that I should buy lots of presents for people this year, because I can this year, and I probably can’t this year. That part is mostly fine; I like buying presents for people.

But once I start doing that, I start buying other stuff, and once I cave in on one thing, I end up caving in on kind of a lot of things that it turns out I need to wear that first thing. Today, I bought a belt. Specifically, a belt that will be worn over a shirt. I know. But I have these super-soft long-sleeved t-shirts that I got for like ten dollars in San Luis Obispo, and I can’t really wear them because when I wear them over jeans, there is that weird thing where the jeans button is. You know, the thing where the corner above the botton hole sort of doesn’t lie flat, so if you’re wearing something thin, it pokes out a little. I guess this probably doesn’t happen if you are really skinny, your jeans probably don’t do that thing, but mine do, and I need a belt to go over that area. I suspect this is how the whole belth-over-shirt thing started. Damn jeans.

Way back in the late summer, I had tried on this skirt at JCrew, which is not there anymore, but it was wool, herringbone, and ADORABLE. I patiently waited for many months til it went on sale then bought it in both brown and gray. But then, that meant it was time, finally time, to get new knee-high black boots. I always have to get extended-calf boots, like half the Internet does from what I can tell, which is fine. But really, I only need a tiny bit more extension, like half an inch. But extended-calf boots give you at least an extra inch, so then the boots are a little too big. Even when you can order a specific calf size, since those go in full inches. But whatever, it’s fine, they look ok, and they zip up, which is really all I care about. To my credit, I did not then go also buy a pair of knee-high brown boots, and will endeavor to just get my sort of crappy ones repaired.

But then I bought some casual brown boots for tromping around in on weekends. I know.

This of course makes me sounds like a crazy person with 45 pairs of shoes and crap she doesn’t wear. I don’t have a lot of shoes, and I have been wearing all the new things I bought. I do, indeed, need to get rid of lots of old stuff that I hate. But really, I mostly wear jeans (mostly from the Gap) and t-shirts (mostly from Old Navy) and sweaters (mostly from both), so I guess I don’t feel too bad and buying more stuff. A little bad, but not too bad.

Saturday Fail!

So clearly, Saturday is a problem for me and the posting. I don’t have any good excuse, except that yesterday I slept in a little, then had to leave at 3:30 to head to Plymouth, so my posting window was small. And I kept thinking, “Oh, I have to post before I leave,” but then I played Zelda.

I had to head to Plymouth for a charity poker tournament. My mom works for my old elementary school, a small Catholic school in Kingston, and they are raising money to build a new kindergarten and early childhood care center. They organized a tournament with a $200 buy-in. I had a great time – it was a good space, there was beer and soda and people to bring it to me. Most importantly, there were dealers. I HATE self-dealing, because I am not a very good shuffler. Stop laughing. It is true – I’m slow, and clumsy, and it’s just painful to watch.

Anyway, it was really fun! My table was great – good players who knew what they were doing, so no one went in with insane hands, people bet really well, everyone got along. One of the guys from my original table came in fourth or fifth, which is nice. I lost, but I was in for a long time, about three and a half hours (it started at 7pm and ended after midnight), and then I came in third in my side game (so I got my side money back). BA also came to play, and though he did not win, he seemed to also have fun! So next time, hopefully even more of my friends will come.

My mom was kind enough to put us up at her house, and her boyfriend picked us up from and dropped us off at the train. We even got coffee and muffins in the morning, can’t beat that.

As you know, I like small things

I don’t mean like “the little things in life” that are so great. I literally like physically small objects. I would also prefer that they be shiny. I collected rocks and coins as a child, and confess to an almost unreasonable love of Micromachines (I say almost because, come on, you know such a love is totally justified).

So I’ve been investing (this relates, I promise) with my extra cash monies, because there will likely be a time in the near future during which I will have very little extra cash. I want to have socked away a bunch in various index funds and whatnot so that it will continue to make baby monies so that I can someday retire and continue to support myself in the very glamorous lifestyle that you all know I require. To that end, I read a lot of personal finance blogs (YET ANOTHER THING that Ro introduced me too that turned out to be pretty great. crap), and in addition to hearting index funds, several of them have used Prosper, a microlending program. You can read more about microlending here, here, and here, but basically, people who need tiny little loans and either don’t want to go through a bank or can’t go through a bank because of their credit history or income can apply for a loan via a program like Prosper. Then other people can act as “lenders” and can finance the loan (in its entirety, if you wish, but more often people contribute $50 or $100 to many different loans). There is a lot more to it (as to interest rates, repayment, credit grades, etc.) but this isn’t an ad, so.

Ro reminded me that the whole microlending thing was really pioneered outside of the U.S. by the dude who started Grameen Bank, which stared a program of making microloans to working poor persons in Bangladesh. These kinds of microlending programs – focusing on making loans to the working poor around the world, but primarily in the Third World – have been hugely successful, both in terms of providing much-need funding for farmers and small businesses and being repayed (the repayment rate on these loans is incredibly high). I poke around on the Internet and came across Kiva, which was started a few years ago in SF, and which works like Proper but which partners with microlenders around the world to help, you guessed it, the working poor. Kiva doesn’t administer any loans itself, rather it acts as sort of a central hub through which lenders (me) and find people requesting loans (see below), loans which are held by various microlending groups, charities, and institutions.

I made my first loan to these dudes.

They still need more funding, so if you’re interested, head on over to Kiva, sign up, and start lending people some money. On Prosper, you set up a connection with your bank account, but on Kiva you just use Paypal, so registering is much easier. I’ll post updates on both programs once I’ve used them for a bit.

I can think of about 15 more things to say about microlending generally and these two programs specifically, but I have 28 more posts to write after this one, so I’ll save it. I do find it extremely interesting to look at the individual loan requests on the two. The vast majority of the (primarily U.S.-based) Prosper loan requests are for some kind of debt consolidation. The Kiva loan requests are for things like seeds to start a farm, or money to invest in a small business. I think the commentary kind of writes itself there.