Well, several financial things running through my head today that I Realized I haven't mentioned much about.

Firstly, my coworker mentioned recently something about paying individuals through online bill pay. I am not sure why, but I knew I could do this, but never thought to. She brought it up so I looked at it. I entered my gardener and the preschool's phone #s and they immediately pop up. Someone at my CU had already payed both of them, so that was that. Entered their phone # and I was set.

This will save me almost $5/year in stamps for the gardener (I had taken to mailing the checks since it was unpredicatble when I would see him).

The preschool? I usually hand it over, so just one LESS check to write every month.

I am estatic! Kind of like a duh, why didn't I think of this sooner.

My CU is happy to print out the checks AND mail them for me, all at no charge.

Be my guest!

Along with me trying my darnedest not to use cash ever again, this makes for a very cashless/checkless month.

OF course, I did write checks out of my online savings account because I knew I could write them, get them all ready, pop them in the mail closer to the due date, and they would probably clear afterwards. (IRS and property taxes - rather large). More interest for me. So though I could have transferred the money to my checking and done online bill pay, I chose not to. I'll earn a lot more interest, phew.

So still a few checks for me...

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Also, when I first joined the site and was less organized, I found if I kept extra money in my checking, it would just get spent.

Bad news.

I have been aiming to run my balance to $0 and transfer any excess to savings, very purposefully. Sure, I can spend it, but it is a little extra step than just spending all the money in my account. Likewise, I have been saving more with this mindset. Extra to savings, not splurging.

Anyway, in the course of all this I took out most of the float in my checking account and put it in savings. IT helped me reach my efund goal sooner. Instead of paying bills when I got them I started paying them on the due date instead.

Overall, I am fine with this. BUT I find myself running my paycheck to the bank now (which I have never had to do before, I could wait days/weeks before if I wanted). IT primarily drives me nuts with them mortgage and credit cards. The due date is a little too close to paydate and it makes me nervous every single month. Always the worst case in my head, what if I don't get to the bank with my paycheck in time?

Anyway, I have never lived like this before, and likewise, I am VERY tired of it. LOL.

By the same token, I also feel like our budget is way under control. So one day I was just wishing I had a $1300 windfall and I would pop it in the bank and start paying my credit card and mortgage early again. Then I thought, well. If I could be disciplined, I could transfetr $1300 from my efund to do so, transferring it into my checking account. I think I really could be good about not touching it.

But it would completely eliminate the need to RUN to the bank every payday.

So I thought, this sounds mighty nice. I'm giving it a whirl. We'll see how it goes.

I am sure it will be fine. At some point though I am just going to have a goal to keep an extra $1500 in there or something just because. For the long term no, that is not where I Want my efund to be. & I will lose a little interest (though I guess not much these days). So we'll see... But in the short term, a piece of the efund will do the trick.

I just have to add this is EXTREMELY psychological. It has nothing to do with my budget. IT's just since I put that $1300 in my efund, it got me to my goal much faster. & I am working on other goals now. I have no desire to work on my efund right now. !! (Though this is the first place any unexpected windfall would go!!)

Likewise, I guess I can justify "borrowing it" from my efund more than I could see draining it to make life easier. BEcause them my efund would drop below the goal, and that is depressing!

However, if I was bad and I overspent what was in my checking account, well it would have come from the efund anyway. Right?

So in the end nothing has changed except I made my life a little easier and lost interest on $1300 of my efund. We'll see though.

I don't think the money in my checking account will make me any more inclined to spend it. But it could. If so, I guess the price to pay will be running to the bank every payday. But if I am more inclined to spend it there, well, yeah, that is just psychological too.

I just wanted to be clear it is one big psychological mess. LOL. Which in the ends really makes little difference. !!
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Beyond all that, I am pondering my net worth. My holy grail of net worth is this article:

http://www.emarotta.com/article.php?ID=165

If nothing else, a good starting point and a practical way of measuring progress.

The jist is between ages 40 and 60, you should save 1/2 of your annual spending every year. Well, your net worth should grow by that much every year. Which is very different than your savings I guess. Though I am a good decade younger, I have been aiming for that.

Of course, last year was a year of a windfalls and a great stock year. So the whole 50% thing was easy peasy.

This year is going to be really slow going.

I am trying to think of the givens:

$4k to mortgage (regular payments)
$8k work retirement
$4k ROTHs
$3k Savings
$2k Kids' Savings
($2k) Car Depreciation
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$19k Total?
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That's kind of the bare minimum I Expect, as long as I am working.

OF course, stock losses will likely take my net worth further down.

So I consulted the holy grail to see what the minimums were. Not sure I was pleased with them, but was rather refreshing.

BEtween age 30 & 35 my net worth only really needs to go up by 1/5 of my spending, every year?

My employers' retirement contributions and the regular mortgage payments has that down pat.

From age 35 to 39 it looks like you aim for 25% of spending every year (to increase your net worth by).

Then at 40 you get to 50%.

Well a $10k-$15k increase will mostly do the job for my true age range. I find that quite doable.

I think I can then be okay to take a little hit for bad stock years. Maybe age 30 was a little too agressive. Maybe I should commit to age 35 to start the 50% per year thing. I mean the thing is, sure, I made it last year. But just not at a sustainable level. Maybe by 35 the average of the good and bad stock years will get us there.

Of course, if I can pull the 50% thing, consistently, starting now, it will put our net worth at about $500k at age 40. I don't find that half bad at all.

Oh well, it suddenly doesn't feel so dire if we don't make our net worth goal this year. But I will still try my darnedest - that is for sure!!! My goal has been more in the $25k-$30k range. & that is certainly what I will shoot for.

To remove the whole housing volatility out of it I just valued my home at assessed value (pretty close to what we paid and far below current market rates). We'll see. I wouldn't rule out having to decrease that either. But of course hoping and optimisitc it won't come to that. The market is a big yo you right now. Low prices got close but then buyers started to move in and snatch up the low prices, and drove up prices again, so who knows. I never counted much on home equity before and I am certainly not trying to track it now. !!

Which puts our net worth at about 50% cash paid into our house and 50% retirement/savings. It's just too depressing not to count all the cash we have paid into our house. I have to count that for now. Over time, it will matter less (should be a much smaller piece of our net worth, with time!!). But yeah, all that is how I arrived at using assessed value. IT goes up something like 1.5% every year. Whereas our house went up 100% in value, and then down 40% in the last few months. Who can keep track??? What a roller coaster... I try to keep that out of all my goal tracking. IF we end up with a lot of equity, even better. But not exactly holding my breath.