Hoboken Mom Condo Living
Planning the long-term & juggling the everyday

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I’ve visited four zoos near Hoboken over the past four years, all of them have petting zoos. Newspaper column w/reviews & cost analysis at http://patch.com/A-22H.

We recently took a weeklong vacation in Washington DC. Here is the list of items I found invaluable on our trip.

• Kelty Camp Hauler 2 (x2): Stored an amazing amount of food, drinks, diapers and toys. I kept mini first aid kits tucked into the front zipper pouches, these were incredibly handy both on the car trip and in our rental apartment.
• Bobble BPA free water bottle: I used this to make filtered water for ice cubes and to refill our water bottles each day. Much lighter and handier than packing bottled water for the whole trip.
• Bedbugz inflatable bed rail: Installed this under the sheet on the side of the king bed where my son slept; kept him from falling out of bed.
• Embark Air Bed: Comfortable night’s sleep on the living room floor of our rental apartment, it blew up very quickly with my Coleman electric pump (also used pump for bed rail). At $19.99, much cheaper than renting a two-bedroom apartment, also convenient b/c I didn’t have to worry about kids falling out of bed.
• Thule Quest Rooftop Cargo Bag: Folds up compactly into an included small zipper bag, easy to store in between trips. Invaluable for travel with a car (ie. non-minivan or SUV). NOT waterproof but I brought garbage bags for our luggage in case of rain.
• Pottery Barn Kids rolltop lunch bag: I kept bottles of milk, sandwiches, cookies, and a frozen water bottle in this each day of our trip. It is slim so fit easily under the stroller and in car backseat, when it emptied out I cinched the top down to make it more compact. Best $6 I ever spent, really glad I bought five so I can use them for school lunches.
• Cloud B Constellation Night Light: Helped my little one go to sleep at night; he sleeps with the turtle at home so was immediately comfortable in DC apartment when the stars lit up the sky. Only downside; he kept putting the turtle in a dresser drawer, so the risk of forgetting it was very high.
• Toddler windbreakers: Lightweight, easy to pack into small spaces, useful in case of rain or icy cold museum air conditioning.
• GoLite Women’s Wind Jacket: Zips up into an incredibly small pocket, the whole thing is the size of an apple and weighs about 4 oz. I keep this in my handbag at all times, it saves me having to pack a jacket when we go on walks and the weather is cooler or rainier than I expect. Also useful in icy cold grocery stores.

I cannot say enough good things about Oakwood Arlington, the temporary corporate housing where we stayed. My kids felt at home as soon as we set foot in our one-bedroom apartment (my daughter keeps referring to her other house, gulp), the apartment was spacious and extremely well thought out, with plenty of cooking utensils, towels and sample size packs of dish, laundry and dishwasher soap complete with sponges.  The service level was not up to the level of a regular hotel since there was no daily maid service, but the maintenance staff brought us extra face towels and blankets; it was much more like living in a luxury highrise with concierge. The compact and very speedy washer/dryer in the kitchen was a godsend; I did two loads of wash each day and came home with luggage full of clean laundry, a nice novelty.

We loved the large outdoor swimming pool and nicely appointed community room with large flat screen TV, billiard table, and lots of comfortable seating. The building was constructed in 1960 but has been maintained and updated very well. We liked the indoor garage one floor down from the lobby and outdoor balcony overlooking the pool so we could see if my daughter’s buddy was swimming. The building residents were friendly and approachable with very nice dogs, I think they assumed we were state department employees like them.

I normally try to stay as far away as possible from Hoboken politics because I find them incomprehensible. There is a subset of the Hoboken population that gets incredibly impassioned about them; the rest of us can barely grasp the complexities to each situation, let alone understand them.

However, there are two things that are crystal clear to me: 1) 18 months ago, when I bought my four-bedroom, Hoboken was in a fiscal crisis. There had just been a huge property tax hike to cover large unplanned expenditures (I remember something about an unauthorized, expensive pension payout), and 2) Mayor Cammarano had just been arrested for accepting bribes, and I received a number of concerned emails from people who were thinking about moving to Hoboken but were deterred by the amount of very bad press the city was receiving. We are now thankfully past that terrible time in Hoboken’s history, but where do we go from here?

I am a careful steward of my family’s finances. I put almost all our expenses on two credit cards (American Express Blue and a Upromise mastercard because not everyone takes AMEX) so I can track our monthly spending. Our household expenses are not static from month to month since we have large sporadic payments (quarterly property taxes, annual car and homeowners insurance), so I keep a significant cash cushion in a money market to cover those predictable expenditures along with unexpected ones like car repairs or illness.

Only when all of life’s major and minor expenses are safely covered do I undertake luxuries like the family vacation we recently took to Washington DC. Did we have a wonderful time? Absolutely, the kids were angels on the car trip and had a blast visiting the Smithsonian and Capitol Hill. Did we get a great deal on corporate housing? Yes, we spent only 75% of our projected vacation budget and will go for a longer visit next time. But was the experience worth jeopardizing our household’s long-term stability? Not in a million years.

There has to be balance in all things in life. A city is no different from a household in that regard. My family is weathering the current recession incredibly well because I plan well. Many aspects of life are not predictable, but I have found that having a cash cushion gives me many more options when I am dealing with them. My credit options are incredible because we always pay our bills in full, on time, and keep a healthy chunk of cash in reserves. I just received a Upromise Mastercard with a 15-month 0% APR on purchases, along with up to 10% college rewards on gas, grocery, drugstore and dining purchases.

When our car gets dinged up by parking on the street, I pay cash upfront and negotiate the price with the body shop rather than go through my insurance company. I get much better deals by paying cash, plus my insurance premiums don’t go up, which long-term more than offsets any immediate savings from getting my insurance to pay for repairs.

Safety is important. So is compassion. But even when I feel like we are in great financial shape, I know misfortune does not discriminate; my husband’s industry could crater, one of us could get sick, all sorts of minor and major events could conspire to sink our financial ship. I have a responsibility to my family to give them good lives in the most prudent, thrifty way possible. That means not everyone is going to get what they want 100% of the time. I feel terrible for the families of the Hoboken police officers who are facing layoffs. I would not wish myself in their shoes and would love for there to be a way to save their jobs. But creating an enormous public outcry does not change the facts of the situation. Not too long ago, Hoboken was on the edge of insolvency and is still far from financially healthy.

One budget surplus is not the same thing as thrifty, careful, long-term management of income and expenses. A city has many more wild cards than my household; soaring pension and healthcare obligations to retirees, a hospital with a multi-million dollar annual budget, various maintenance and repair issues, all while facing decreased revenues. It will impact the lives of many thousands if any one of these extremely expensive wild cards forces Hoboken into or near bankruptcy, which is happening in California. I know it is hard to cut spending, but it has to be done for this city to have a solid, sustainable future. That is what I would do if my household had just experienced a major budgetary scare and was on the first step to the road to financial recovery. The money has to come from somewhere; if not the police budget then somewhere else.

$65 for 10 playspace passes, 3 classes, haircut, & discounts on NYC boutique & cafe. Normal price for passes is $100 for 10, I bought packages for both my kids since I am not sure which class to put them in this fall. One per customer (got around this by buying two as a gift for my daughter), up to age 5. http://www.groupon.com/deals/kidville

Update: This groupon expires on 10/31, so check your calendar before purchasing. I plan on using my playspace passes for playdates with friends who are not Kidville members to make sure we use them up.

Made a list of our needs and potential vacation spots within driving distance, then did online research and financial analysis. Where to go and stay, w/financial analysis, @ http://patch.com/A-22W

Since their favorite foods vary from week to week. I try to offer each food group once a day and have spent the summer experimenting with packing lunch for my older child, soon to start Abbott pre-k. Column @http://patch.com/A-1Kw

One of the many reasons why my husband and I chose to buy a home in Hoboken is because we can afford to maintain it on one income. Housing prices, while expensive for the rest of the US, are still much lower than in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and you get the benefit of lower income taxes, which more than outweigh the difference in property taxes (I estimate we are paying an additional $6k in property tax versus $12k in income tax savings). Condo fees are also much lower than standard co-op charges, and groceries and clothing are much cheaper, so overall I estimate our cost of living is about 25% less than if we had purchased a comparable home in Brooklyn.

We stretched to buy a four-bedroom condo rather than a three-bedroom because I own a consulting business, which enables us to deduct a portion of the household expenses. The IRS rule is that in order to qualify for deductions, a home office must have a door that closes and is not used for another purpose (ie. a kid’s bedroom). It’s really nice to deduct that 12% of our mortgage, insurance and utility bills, but the real savings come from itemized deductions. Our annual mortgage interest and property taxes far exceed the $10,700 standard deduction, plus I can deduct all my business expenses like cellphone bills, child activities and a large part of our car expenses.

Because I am married to someone who is a full-time employee, I don’t have to deal with the usual small business hassles of getting health and life insurance. My husband and I are able to leverage the benefits from both corporate employment and self employment. We contribute enough to my husband’s 401k to qualify for his full employer match, and then put away as much as possible into my retirement IRAs and personal 401k since that money lowers my income (and therefore my taxes, which are higher than my husband’s since I have to pay self-employment tax).

I would not be able to deduct my business expenses if we were renters (even assuming we would be able to rent a 4BR). Net after deductions, we are paying about the same on a monthly basis to own our 4BR as it would cost to rent a large 2BR. The longer we stay in our home, the better our financial picture looks.

Because the cost of living is lower in Hoboken than it is in NYC, we also run a much lower risk of triggering the alternative minimum tax, which kicks in for couples earning $150,000 or more. When I was running financial scenarios, I figured out I would have to work full-time for us to raise our family in Brooklyn. That made buying in Hoboken a no-brainer.

My two toddlers have been chopping, whisking & stirring since they could stand on a stepstool. Cooking almost all our meals helps our family’s health and budget, but it also helps my kids learn about gardening and personal finance (ie. broccoli costs $2!) Newspaper column at http://patch.com/A-0Kq

A few weeks ago, two Hertz Connect cars appeared on a street corner near my home. They were impossible to miss since they have orange traffic markers in front of them and bright green paint outlining the spots they occupy. I pass by them almost every day, and was mightily intrigued. My husband and I have toyed with the idea of buying a second car down the road, but parking and acquisition costs are daunting obstacles. Having a low-cost backup car readily available is extremely appealing, so when I found a coupon code giving me a free 2-year membership and $75 driving credit, I signed up for it.

After a couple of weeks and some gentle reminders from Hertz (”We have noticed you haven’t taken advantage of your Connect by Hertz membership lately”) I decided to test drive the the Connect Smart car on a grocery run to keep the drive short and easy. I also have been dying to try out a Smart Car ever since I was in Italy a few years ago and saw them everywhere.

Your membership card is key to the whole experience. You swipe it across a windshield sensor to unlock and lock the car, and also to start the ignition (each swipe expires after two minutes). My card unlocked the driver and passenger doors, but not the trunk, which kept causing problems for me since the whole point of this trip was to buy groceries. The on-call assistant was pretty adamant that I should use only my card to unlock or lock the vehicle, but I got desperate after several attempts failed and use the manual unlock button. I also had issues with restarting the car after each stop (note: when the Hertz computer asks if you would like to end your reservation, answer NO).

I also had issues with getting the car to actually drive. When I started the ignition and shifted from park to reverse or drive, the car kept getting stuck in neutral. It took me three or four attempts to get the car to actually drive. I also couldn’t find the gas tank release switch (good thing the tank was almost full!)

I don’t know what percentage of the complications were caused by user error (full disclosure: I am a NYC native, so I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 28) and what proportion was caused by Hertz system issues or Smart Car design flaws. I do know it took me much longer to get familiar with the setup than I expected, so the entire trip took two hours rather than one (the reservation computer allows you to extend your reservation end time, which I wound up having to do twice), for a total trip cost of $15.99. I also had difficulty getting the car to lock (it took three or four attempts) and when the next reservation-holder showed up, he couldn’t unlock the car with his card and had to call for assistance. Oops, sorry about that!

If I didn’t have kids or own a car, I would be tempted to rely on the Connect cars, especially since one or both of the vehicles outside my home are usually available. I once figured out that between parking, insurance and acquisition expense, it costs me $60/day to own my car. However, we no longer plan on getting a second car down the road when my kids start driving (groan). If my husband attends a local fencing tournament, he can take a Connect car to the event (they start at the crack of dawn) and then I can bring the kids down at a more sane hour. When relatives come to town, they can rent a Connect car and follow us on outings around the area. Between the Connect program and the newly expanded Hop that runs past all the public elementary schools, Hoboken is really improving life for families.