Money Makes the World Go 'Round

Sometimes people say things that just catch you completely by surprise. You look at them like a deer frozen in the headlights and you try desperately to figure out what they are saying. You know that the language they were speaking was English, and each of the individual words make sense, but taken together, they do not seem to have any meaning to you. Or sometimes, you can be having a conversation with someone and you think that you are both talking about the same thing, but then at some point you discover that you were having two completely different conversations that actually had nothing to do with one another. For example, you think that you are talking about dinner at Thanksgiving and they think that you are talking about Christmas. The discussion of what sort of side dishes goes along just fine until something like: No, we can't have corn because Aunt Betsy is allergic to it. What does that have to do with it? Well since she'll be there, we should try to accomodate her. Is Aunt Betsy flying out for this? You know she is, I told you last week. No you told me last week she was coming for Christmas. Yes, she's coming for Christmas. What does that have to do with Thanksgiving dinner? Nothing. So why are you bringing it up? Because you were going to serve corn. So what if I serve corn at Thanksgiving? We're not talking about Thanksgiving, we're talking about Christmas! No we're not, we're talking about Thanksgiving dinner! (Stunned expressions all around.) I call this rupture. Communication looks like it is happening, but it is not. Well, I had a rupture moment this past weekend. Someone mentioned some puzzlement on my post about the cost of the copies and CDs for my packets for my girls and they didn't understand why I was concerned about the cost. I expressed confusion, I mean, why shouldn't I care about the cost. The conversation had serious rupture until I finally figured out that they thought that the organization pays and/or reimburses these sorts of expenses. I don't know where they got that idea, but I know that I must have done a great deer in the headlights when I finally figured out what they were trying to say. So to clarify a bit, most of the expenses of going up the Grand Line or being a Grand Officer come out of the Grand Officer's pocket. There are a small amount of funds for Grand Line Officers and the WGM and WGP do have a travel budget, but nothing for an Appointive Grand Officer. And Grand Line Officers have a lot more expenses than can be made up with the small stipend that you get, or so I have heard. The first time I served as a Grand Officer, silly me, I thought it would be interesting to keep a spread sheet of the expenses. After all, Excel and I get along pretty good and it would be interesting to see if the empirical data of actual expenses matched the rumors. The problem with doing that was that I put a running balance in the rightmost column and when it passed from four digits to five, I wondered if ignorance wouldn't have been more blissful. Now before getting into the nitty gritty of the thing, let me start by saying that I was perfectly happy to spend this money for the opportunity to serve as a Grand Officer. Getting to travel all over the state as a Grand Officer is amazing and wonderful. It is absolutely awesome to go to a town where you have never been before and be welcomed with open arms by people you have never met before, just because you are Sisters and Brothers in a fraternal order. Words cannot describe how touched and honored I was each time we came into a new area and everyone was so glad to see us, so generous and so concerned that we have a good time. Money can't buy the kind of warm, instant friendship that we, as a Grand Family, received each time we travel to an event. The members all over the state open their hearts to us and are thrilled that we have come to visit them. Their concern and kindness is completely priceless. Unfortunately, getting around the state to have these wonderful experiences is not so free, as my little spread sheet showed me. When it was all done, I discovered that my Grand Warder year cost me about $15,000 and if I had not had an escort who did most of the driving and the rental cars, it would have been about another $2,500 or so. That is a lot of money, so I looked at where it went and what could be saved. This is sort of how it broke down. Clothes - About $1,800 This includes at a minimum three different formals, winter, spring and session, and a travel outfit (which you buy two or three of because you wear it all year). But the WGM also picks out a shoe color and sometimes that means buying a new handbag to match. I didn't own any silver or navy shoes, so I had to buy those and find a navy purse too. Some years, there are more clothes, such as a Western outfit or a Hawaiian outfit or a casual outfit, so the clothes could run as high as $2,200 or so. In my year, I have a funny feeling that my officers may have to have a medieval outfit because with the castle in my emblem and everyone knowing I do medieval re-creation, I suspect that a few of my Official Visits might have a medieval theme. But clothes are a real drop in the bucket compared to . . . Hotel Stays - About $6, 000 You stay in a hotel when you are not in your home area, so that averages about five hotel nights a month (some months four, some months six, etc.) at about $100 per hotel night, sometimes more with room and sales tax. There is often no getting around this one unless you are close enough to go home. Sometimes people stay with friends or relatives, but when it is your one year as a Grand Officer, you want to spend as much time as possible with your Grand Family, and evenings and fun trips after an afternoon event or on an off day can be some of the best times ever and you miss out on a lot of that when you don't stay at the hotel. Now I will admit that as a Grand Line Officer, and watching the number of years you serve go up from one to six, some of the blush is off that rose and saving a few hundred dollars staying with friends and relatives begins to look a bit more attractive. So perhaps this number can be eased down a little bit with a little help from my friends. Airline Tickets - About $3,000 Now I will be the first to admit that people who are not working can probably cut this expense in half by taking the extra time to drive everywhere. With the rising price of gas, however, I am not sure how much they would save today. There are some great ticket prices on Southwest right now, so I think I got some of my flights for cheaper than driving would cost me, but in other times, I have paid a lot for the tickets. If you work though, you can't spend an extra whole day to drive six to eight hours to things, so that means flying, often leaving Friday afternoon or evening and coming home Sunday night. This amount would have been higher, but I live close to the airport, so I could get friends to drop me off and pick me up, so I didn't have to pay for the parking and because I am also a pilot, sometimes I would fly myself down and even though the cost was about the same, I didn't put those amounts in my spread sheet. Gas/Parking/Tolls - $600 (would have been more like $2,000) I had some gas expenses, for stuff in the local area to which my escort could not go, but for the most part, she paid for the gas and did the driving when we drove to things. Our deal was that she would do the driving and the rental cars and I would pick up all the hotels because splitting all the time is a bother and the hotel expenses were more than the gas and cars. However, I must admit that this figure does not include the vehicle wear and tear. Grand Officers who drive have been known to put anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 miles on their car in that one year. It is a known joke that around the time that the new Grand Family is announced, people start looking around to see whose bought a new car so they can try to guess the new Grand Officers. Rental Cars/Cabs - about $400 (would have been more like $1,500) I did have to pick up a few rental cars when my escort was not there, but not very many. Sometimes you can save some of this by sharing a car with another Grand Officer, but oftentimes you are coming in from different parts of the state, so it can be tricky to meet up at the airport to get one car. Grand Officer Account and Gifts - about $700 When you are an Appointive Grand Officer, you pay money into a Grand Officer account that is used to buy certain traditional gifts for the WGM and WGP. Lots of Grand Families also have a Secret Pal tradition where you buy little anonymous presents for one of the other officers throughout the year. And each Grand Officer is in charge of a gift presentation to one of the other Grand Officers at some point during the year, so you have to pay for that also. Some Grand Families do more or less expensive gifts, but there is usually something that you have to buy or pay for. Also, when the Grand Family comes to your area, you often give gifts to them at your area's Official Visit or host them to a meal. Cards, Postage and Copies - about $300 When you go to different events, you get little love gifts and courtesies from the local officers. Each one of these needs a thank you card, regardless of the size or type of gift. Even when you buy these out of the Current catalog or some other bulk service, with postage added, each card costs about a dollar, so if you send 200 to 300 cards, you are going to spend $200 to $300. Some people save about half this money by printing their own cards on the computer, but that is a different expense. However, this amount would have been higher but a lot of members gave me note cards and thank you cards and stamps so I used those as much as possible. I think that forever stamps are one of the best gifts ever! You also do a letter for your local officers and you have to copy that yourself. If you want to send out other letters during the year, you pay for those too. Local Officer Gifts - About $250 When you visit local officers, it is nice to have a little token gift for them, something to say thank you for serving your Chapter and thank you for your warm welcome. You need about 200 of them because you usually have one local officer per Chapter and while you might not meet all of them, you want to be prepared. Sometimes these are more expensive, sometimes less if you have time to make things instead of having to buy them, although I made my Grand Marshal gifts and they actually cost more. Reception Expenses - About $1,700 This is a really tricky area on estimating the expenses. Each Chapter that has an Appointive Grand Officer is usually expected to put on a reception for that Officer and all that Officer's local officers, some time during the year. Some Chapters spend more on this and some spend less, but no matter how much or how little they spend, there are always expenses that you just have to pay for out of your own pocket. For example, it is often traditional to have gifts for all your local officers who come to the reception, gifts for all the other Grand Officers who came, and gifts for everyone who participated in or helped with the reception. It is traditional to provide some sort of meal event for your attending local officers and sometimes your Grand Family, and often those expenses end up out of your pocket too. I wanted photos and video for my reception so I had to pay for those out of my pocket also. If you want special entertainment, you might end up paying for that as well. However, this is one area where, if you can't afford this stuff, you can cut way, way back and save a lot of money. There are a bunch of miscellaneous little expenses that crop up too, and I didn't bother to track food expenses because I eat out all the time anyway, but if you are used to eating in, food can also be a whopper of an expense, worse if you drive because then you have more meals on the road. But the above items come to $14,750 without the misc. or any food at all and of that amount, you can probably only save, realistically, about $3,000, so even "doing it on a shoestring" means around $12,000 or about $1,000 per month. Wow! Adding it all up like that is a real eye opener every time I do it. My Grand Marshal year was about the same, with a lot more money for rental cars and gas though, because my escort traveled less so I had to pick up more of those. All in, all done, I have probably spent about $32,000 in two years, with four more to go. I have had people ask me how I manage all the travel while still working and what I want to know is how does anyone afford this without having a steady salary? I got to find me a rich husband, that's the answer! This next weekend, I am going to four Installations in the relatively local area and squeezing two other events into the morning hours. We will see what six events, and four mid-day changes of dress feels like.