The consequence of possibly getting our cash in order within a year, is that when you have cash it is easier to spend it.

In theory anyway. Dh and I are not the greatest examples as we can be a bit of cash hoarders. But by the same token, I do feel like we are about to explode with purchases we haven't been able to justify since having kids.

I am not sure how the 2 sides will balance out, so better safe than sorry.

It is also always good to sit down and talk about this stuff with a spouse. Sometimes you have no idea they were thinking it was a good idea to make a huge purchase in a year or 2.

So, what does this say about us? The only *new* purchases we have on the horizon (things we don't already own):

Bed/Mattress for LM (NEED)
Security/Screen Door
Trip to Hawaii
Play Structure (for kids)
Ping Pong Table
Pool Table

The trip to Hawaii materialized this year as a potential reward for making it this long without dh working, as our finances improve. Also goes will with the whole 10-year-wedding-anniversary thing. Though we are starting to think we should make it an 11-year trip. I feel no pressing need to have to go ASAP.

That is a rather new thing, and the rest centers around our home. Because, well, we are home bodies!

Here's most of the rest of the list. ** Denotes replacing things we already own. Some need to be replaced; others we want to replace with newer and/or better:

**HDTV
**New Computer Monitors (20-ish years old - the both of them).
**Digital Camera (6 years old - pennies to replace with something 4 times better)
**Replace Fence
**Outdoor Furniture
**Replace Sectional Couch (I just hate it)
**Adobe Suite (Software)
**HD Camcorder
**Redo Bathroom Tiles
**Replace Garage Door Opener (Quieter)

Though I am often impressed how little our material wish list is (new items we don't already own), other times I see how overwhelming it can be to maintain a fair amount of material items. IT probably doesn't help that so much that we own was hand-me-down or free. OF course, the irony, if I think about it, is that most of the stuff we want to replace, WE BOUGHT NEW in the first place. Oy vey. No explanation for that!

I keep thinking of more things for the list. I will have to update this post eventually. I'm probably forgetting quite a lot.

There will always be a list. I am quite sure some of these purchases will never be made. Not all of them are financially justifiable - & some are more necessary than others.

I am hoping that having a real, solid, written down list (that isn't merely in our heads) will help us to better manage them financially. This is definitely a new thing!

What is one secret to squeezing out more savings? Pay your bills "late!"

Actually, the deal is, someone in the forums was asking about a budget problem and not getting paid for 30 days or something. They were concerned about their mortgage payment. If they were that tight for money, I figured they probably already knew their mortgage had a grace period. I didn't want to state the obvious, but brought it up.

The reply was something like, "I could never pay the mortgage late!" Like I suggested something pretty terrible.

Oy vey!

Anyway, I think it's a good tip and it got me thinking, so I had to share.

(I mean, come one MM blog followers - do I delight in paying my bills late? LOL).

Most mortgages (check with yours) allow a 15-day grace period. Meaning, you can pay your mortgage 15 days "late" with no negative consequences. I have always kept this in the back of my mind - it would be the first action in case of emergency - I would pay the mortgage ve after the 1st instead of before the 1st.

& yes, I have paid my mortgage "late" MANY times. I know for a fact that there is no negative consequences.

After that discussion I was thinking about it. Well, my $2150 property tax bill was due Sunday. But no penalty is assessed until December 10th. I mean come on, the REAL due date is December 10. I don't know anyone financially savvy who pays their tax bill in November, unless they just like to pay their bills super early. By waiting for December 1, I will earn $4 in interest. $4!!!!! If you collect pennies, why wouldn't you pay your bills on their real due dates???

So, anyway. I don't know if there are any other bills I habitually pay "late." Probably not. Everything else should really probably be paid on time, to avoid penalties and issues. & credit cards? The earlier the better.

Thing is, most people don't realize their mortgage company can be rather lenient compared to other types of companies.

I googled a bit to see how standard a 15-day mortgage grace period is, and it looks pretty standard. Late payment is not reported until 30 days.

If it were me, and I had no income for a month, and no savings, I would just pay the mortgage late. Even if over 15 days - take the penalty, and call it a day. Beats racking up credit card debt or a loan. If it doesn't affect your credit score, since you paid in 30 days, why not? I still think it seems like the easiest solution, given the scenario. But hey, what do I know???

Anyway, why have I often paid my mortgage "late?" To avoid touching my savings (generally in times of higher interest) for a simple, temporary cash flow issue. I find it easier than juggling all my savings around. I've had a years worth of savings in the bank, and paid the mortgage "late" so I wouldn't have to jiggle money around.

Obviously I take my mortgage very seriously. I wouldn't recommend paying it late, habitually, beyond using it as a money management tool.

I guess the other thing is being an accountant, I view the "due date" as merely a suggestion. I get the feeling that some people view it as a moral obligation. Believe me, as long as said company gets paid and doesn't have to send you a late notice, it's all good!

The weather here is, ugh...

Big storm Tuesday.

Since then, it warmed up, but there is so much humidity in the air!!! (Our humidity is usually 0).

Skipping showers and wearing the same clothes multiple days, does not fly in this humidity. Times like this I am reminded why it's easier to conserve water when the humidity is 0. OF course, it's also more necessary.

I told dh all week they brought the Florida weather with them. So today I read that our storm was California's equivalent to a hurricane. (A small hurricane, but a hurricane all the same). Also, a lot of talk about how later in the season, a storm like this could easily cause devastating flooding. So, phew...

In the end, I am worried if I will flip on the AC in the middle of OCtober. !! House is about 76 right now, but with the humidity it just feels, blech. We usually set the house to 80 in the summer. But it's the sticky heat that we aren't accustomed to.

Will see how the day goes. Hot and 76 degrees at 7am, is not good. It's not particularly warm otherwise, just humid. The days have only been in the 60s/70s.

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In my last post I mentioned the demise of the freedom card.

So, how will I survive with $500 or so less in credit cards rewards, next year?

Very well, phew.

I have spent the last few years scrounging spare dimes, to build up my emergency fund. Through credit card rewards and 0% credit card arbitrage. As higher interest rates and credit card rewards dry up, there goes a fair amount of extra income.

The good thing is we are prepared. It was really helpful to build up our emergency fund, rather quickly. But for now, we can live without.

Dh is also making at least $1200/year through his ebay buying and selling, etc. So he is kind of picking up the slack, there.

It feels good to be prepared.

With my new cell phone and ability to take pictures off the camera (the old one had a camera, but we couldn't figure out how to get the pictures off without spending $$). With that, I thought I would take a lot more pictures.

I have.

Apparently, the only thing interesting around here is the sky!

The first one was on the drive home from work, again (these cloudy summer skies are awfully unusual).



This one was a sunrise on a bike ride. The foreground is a pile of empty home lots. No doubt, if the homes were built, my rides wouldn't be so nice and scenic!



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In other news, I Was so shocked of the low price of our hotel for our anniversary (or moreso the expesiveness of the price at every other travel site) that it didn't occur to me I could get a further discount. Like, I know I could call and ask. But I Was fine to just book it, and figured any further savings was a crap shoot.

So I happily booked a $300 stay that came out to $700+ on all the travel web sites.

Of course, after I booked it, they had said very little about their rules and cancellation policy, so I poked around the website a bit. As I did, I found that there was a 10%-off offer PLUS $20/night dinner gift certificate, if I had seen this promo code and used another link to book.

Wha???

So I e-mailed them and asked if I could apply the promo code, or if it would be easier to cancel and rebook. With no answer, I figured we'd call today (yesterday I was trying to work and stuff).

They eventually called us back first and we decided just to cancel the reservation.

I haven't rebooked it yet, but since we got 10% off with AAA, I am pretty sure the new offer voided the AAA offer. So we won't save any money on the room. BUT we will get $40 of free food. Which was really going to be the most expensive part of the trip, besides the room.

I am pleased as punch!

We will probably go out on some interesting, exotic lunches. & then just stick at the hotel for dinner. The restaurant hotel is a Marie Callendar's. I think we may buy some pie too.

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After I had done my Hanes order, I realized we had bought some sweatshirts for BM through Hanes, last year. They are allowed to wear sweatshirts as part of their "uniform." Which is pretty much all he wears when it gets colder.

SO, I perused their website and saw they were on sale for $5 each.

I did another order for those. Ordered 5. 20% off, free shipping, means I paid $20 for 5 brand new sweatshirts. (The ones I bought last year are fine - they have held up well - but they are just getting small).

This is why I rarely shop thrift for the kids any more. I used to a lot more, but I usually can get similar prices new, for FAR less time and hassle.

I am glad I thought to look.

LM's account hit $3k yesterday, AND the stock market was up this morning. So I executed a trade, for today. Trading his Star fund for Vanguard's 2025 Retirement (He'll hit college age in 2023).

Success! I have been keeping an eye on this for 2 weeks. It's been frustrating.

This changes his stock/bond mix from 65/35 to 80/20. But also is a cheaper expense ratio, and I can put on auto pilot if I like (gets more conservative as 2025 approaches).

For now, just not enough to spread out any more (can't buy more than one fund!). I may prefer to manage it more as the balance grows.

BM is not so lucky. His account was like $5 short today. Bummer.

If August wasn't such an atrociously expensive month, I'd probably transfer $50 over to his account, and be done. I just don't feel I have a dime to spare for it. & I figure, whatever, if the market tanks, may be better to exchange it later. Will see. Maybe in October I will have $50 to spare.

We are also considering matching the kids' gifts going forward. All of their college money is pretty much funded by one grandparent. But they are retiring and we can probably match it starting 2011. (Next year is iffy - match will be easier once both kids are in school). I figure it's good to match it as there may be nothing to match, eventually, as they retire, etc. Then we can take over where they left off.

Dh and I spent pennies on our college, so though I think it's important to save up for it, I also don't feel the sheer panic that most parents do. Colleges here remain abundant and cheap, even today, where we live. (The abundance of colleges means kids won't have to go away to college, etc. Just means plenty of less expensive options).

We also have an entire second income to tap if the kids decide they are destined to be doctors or lawyers. From every angle, I Don't sweat it. BUT it will be nice to put a little aside. IT's been hard to justify until now. (Or until next year, I should say).

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Today I updated all of our savings balances through 9/30, etc. I have an idea since we don't pay most our bills (Credit card) until the following month. I think I got a handle on August bills (though admittedly, the month is not over).

& was pleased to see a $23,500+ balance in our savings.

$25k is so close I can almost taste it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

$30k is my goal. $25k is a pretty nice "we are almost there" point, though. Once we reached $30k, we wanted to splurge on a trip to Hawaii. (Well, wanted to reach a little more - did not want to drop below $30k for HAwaii trip).

With all these car repairs, not feeling optimistic on making it next year, after all. But still quite confident that Hawaii in 2011 can be the backup plan. Will see.

So I will enjoy my balance for another month. & I am pleased that even with all these car expenses coming up, that we can probably keep our cash upwards of $20k. That is a pretty nice feeling. Not a feeling we've really had since having kids.

For now the balance is broken down as:

$ 7k ROTH Efund
$ 5k Cash Efund
$ 2k Medical Fund (Deductible)
$ 9k House/Car Fund
$0.5k short-term
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$23,500 TOTAL
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One thing that helps is I just paid the last of the regular short-term expenses (auto insurance) for the year. Well, about $4k of expenses is due in December (property taxes and insurance). But that will build during the next 3 months and make my cash balance appear cheerier than it really is, in the interim.

I still may get the Mid-Term savings (house/car fund) to $10k this year, regardless of all this. I can hope! The balance on 1/1 was something along the lines of $0.

Today I feel like it's been 3 steps forward, and one step back. I can deal with that. That is the whole point of my savings goals - to stay ahead of the curve.

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In other news, kids had clean bill of health (teeth), BUT we were officially told LM will need braces, eventually.

No surprise there!

Funny, they never mentioned for BM. There could still be hope??? (He's older!)

They got my genes and LM's mouth is clearly a mess. I've already been saving up for that, too. IT's just a little more official, I guess.

One thing I may be less prepared for is little kids orthodontia. I didn't get my braces until I Was 10. It seems these days, they start with baby teeth. Will see. I hope I can wait a few more years! But if they can start earlier and if he didn't have to have braces for like 7 years (like I did!), I guess I won't complain. I hear it is a lot easier these days. LEss painful and less ugly. Still, poor kid. It's kind of a bummer.

The short answer is that I keep most of my cash in one account. I keep a $1k cushion in my credit union savings account - which I can withdraw or transfer (to my checking) immediately if I needed it. I keep some cash in my ROTHs (will explain below). I do keep most of it in one Online Money Market Account. For the long run I will probably invest in CDs. For now, there is really no reason to (low interest rates, etc.).

I do keep my cash readily accessible (I can write checks from my money market savings) BUT it's not something that tempts me. I don't personally need to "hide it" so I don't spend it.

I do prefer to keep at least $5k cash readily accessible, for emergency. I think my $5k is like Dave Ramsey's version of the $1k mini-emergency fund. I don't think I have ever had less than $5k cash in a savings account, in my adult life.

Right now I am all in money market cash, so to speak, because we have been "low" on cash and I haven't felt comfortable tying any of it up. As the balance grows to my goals, we will need to ladder some CDs, etc. We may even look at some bond funds - I just haven't gotten to that point yet.

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But, let me go back to the beginning. I've said before, our parents were wonderful financial mentors, but taught neither of us about investing. So WHEN we had $50k+ cash in the past, we were really stupid. IT was sitting in our low-interest savings accounts. Our worst financial mistake ever.

I also had an IRA sitting in cash. No one ever advised me to invest it. !

It was around 2006 and more difficult financial times that we decided to earn some interest on our money. Which was ironic since we had blown through most of it by then. But we opened a couple of high-yield money market accounts since then, and that is where most our savings has sat, since. (We had some CDs when we did some credit card arbitrage - CD interest rates were "high" then).

I was also going to invest my pathetic IRA cash, BUT in 2006 interest rates were higher than I had ever seen them as an adult, AND the writing was on the wall with the economy. We were knee deep in the housing bubble and it didn't look good (just as we had been knee deep in the tech bubble a few years before - we lived in the tech capital and my spouse worked in tech). The writing was on the wall so I took a gamble and converted my IRA into a ROTH and then stuck it in a 5.5% CD for 3 years. Turned out to be a good move. IT matures in 2 months and I will probably be able to invest it at much lower stock prices than I would have been able to in 2006. That's the story on that.

Anyway, as we tried to rebuild our cash reserves, from our $5k low in 2006, we didn't have a lot of money to go around. But I Received a $5k gift a couple of years back and was able to max out our ROTHs that year. I was very intent on building up our cash, but I felt comfortable with this because I knew I could access the ROTH in extreme emergency. So I actually currently have about $7k cash in my ROTH which is designated for emergency. The thing is, for me, maxing out the ROTHs right now is like putting away 23% of my gross income to retirement. Far more than we NEED to put away. But I will do it if I can access the cash in extreme emergency. I don't recommend this strategy if your retirement savings contribution is only 1% - 15% of your income, say. Or if your idea of an emergency is a car repair or a vet bill. I think hell will freeze over before I actually tap my ROTH for cash, honestly. My idea of emergency is prolonged job loss or loss of home (i.e. natural disaster).

Ideally, we will probably keep $10k cash in our ROTH, of our $15k total Efund. Keep $5k accessible cash for mini-efund. So, we may max out our ROTHs this year, with that philosophy.

The ROTH cash is in that CD I mentioned, and in MMFFs. I'll be able to invest a portion of the CD though. We have more cash than I prefer in our ROTHs, simply because my prediction on the recession. (It isn't much - nothing that will make us rich. Like $10k? )

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That's the long and the short of it.

The short answer is that all our money is in Money Market accounts, earning as much interest as possible. When we reach our $30k goal we will probably start shopping CDs and developing more of a long-term cash savings plan. Will probably be $10k in ROTH, $1k in Credit Union, $19k in Online Savings. Anything above that can be tied up in CDs. We will start formulating a long-term plan when we get there. I am a "one thing at a time" type gal.

Investing cash well is not an area I have a lot of experience in though. I have some learning to do.

I'm still around, it's just been a little hectic.

The weather has been much more bearable around here. We came home Sunday reeking of garlic - think it's worn off by now.

Definitely had a spendy month, but was less expensive than I had expected. It's hard to care anyway, our savings is doing so well lately (knock on wood).

---------------------------------

Thinking towards long-term goals lately. I am starting to think we will hit all our "long-term" goals in 2010. Go figure! It depends, but exciting all the same.

I think we will have $30k cash in the bank by next spring. IT's kind of an arbitrary number. It's well over 6 months of "minimal" spending, so certainly an ample emergency fund. The arbitrariness is that we haven't had that much cash since we had our first child. So, um, it FEELS good.

We will be in that range next spring when LM is done with preschool. We have had a few different ideas what to do with that preschool money - $150/month. BUT, we are also saving $250/month for our medical deductible fund, and knock on wood, really haven't used it. As of next summer I would be happy to divert $250+ $150 per month, which is enough to max out our second ROTH (by the following April - meaning we can max both for 2010). I know max may increase, but just one thing at a time here. Putting away $10k per year is more than sufficient! THat's like 12% of my income, on top of the 10% we already contribute to retirement. IT's just too good a tax vehicle to pass up though.

Basically, as long as we are healthy we can max out the second ROTH.

With that, we can still continue to add about $8k per year to cash (which may cover the medical part anyway). I would like to contribute at that level until we have $40k cash. Of course, once we get there, might want to go one more year to $50k. Will see.

Which leads us to our next decision. As our cash balance grows, what do we want to do with the excess?

On one-income, I vote mortgage payoff. I am quite sure long-term investing would easily trump the effective 3.5% interest rate on our mortgage (after tax savings, etc.). BUT, for now life is simple. All our savings is in tax-deferred accounts and cash accounts. Life is very simple. To add taxable investments to the equation just makes me cringe when I think of all the work involved of managing it, and managing the taxes, etc.

Quite simply, paying off the mortgage is easy. IT keeps our taxes very simple, etc. So that is where I lean. Dh probably wants to save more for college. So we have much to discuss there.

If he returns to work it will be a very different ballgame. Our tax bracket will increase drastically. We will probably fund 401ks, HSAs, and 529s instead, to lower our tax exposure. For now, the HSAs and 529s give us no tax benefit, are not very flexible, and cost more than other savings vehicles. For now, I am not offered a 401k. But all these vehicles will save us a lot of taxes if our income increases.

If dh wanted to match his parent's contributions at $2k per year to college - for the kids - I think it's about the most I would really want to set aside. I'd rather start chipping away at the mortgage with any extra cash.

Which means, by end of 2010 we will probably have an ample 6 months' emergency fund, will be maxing our ROTHs (for a total 22% gross to retirement), and saving 10% income to cash. May be funding college. Any windfall could go to the mortgage.

Why so much cash? I'd like $15k for catastrophic emergency (& growing), $20k to replace both cars, and about $10k for home maintenance. Those are all the minimums I Feel we need - though they can overlap a bit. If we use the emergency fund I would gladly buy an old clunker instead, etc. That adds up to about $45k, eh? We tend to hoard cash, but just haven't had the income to do so in a while. I think cash is under-rated for the most part. Has kept our life simple. Will probably keep hoarding cash until we have a years' worth take-home pay in the bank. I have no issue with this if we are maxing out our retirement vehicles. The thing about cash is we can always change our mind down the road (invest it, put a chunk to mortgage, spend it, whatever). & as long as dh is not working, and not terribly employable, I think cash is extra important. IT would be kind of moot if he were working - I wouldn't see the point of hoarding so much then. Interest rates suck now, and have most of our adulthood, but I have managed to earn 5-6% many years on our cash. That time will come again. (I have a 5.5% CD at current - it expires later this year).

All this is probably way optimistic, but the direction we are currently heading in.

The possibility of meeting all of our aggressive savings goals on one income, is very exciting. My last long-term goal of current is to pay off the mortgage by age 45. In like 12 years? I assume dh will return to work to help meet this goal. It still feels like a bit of a pipe dream otherwise. But, who knows.

I've apparently worked my budget down to an "exact science."

I hesitate to use the word "budget" because I am not really into the whole tradiitonal budget thing. I would drive myself nuts accounting for all those overages/underages every month. & you might be surprised, but I do not care for a strict budget. I like that if I spent no money on gas or food, that I can go splurge on something else. I do not carry things over month to month. I guess I like flexibility and ease, over rigidity and complication.

So anyway, we had a good month and for whatever reason it popped into my mind that we really could save another $50/month. I just felt it would be very reasonable.

I opened my "budget" spreadsheet on a whim and looked it over.

Lo and behold - when LM started his new preschool I guess I rounded way up and allocated $200/month to that. Thing is, most months it's barely $150.

So subconsciously I am thinking I have $50 per month to spare, and in reality - I really do.

My goal for maxing out first ROTH was to put away $350/month and "wing it" on the rest - scrounge it up somehow.

This officially puts me to $5k per year, just based on $400 monthly contributions (well, the additional $200 will be easy to scrounge).

So, I am very pleased.

I would like to build up more cash savings, but I also think it's important to contribute heavily to retirement in this market. So I am kind of doing $400/month to each, for now. I certainly am tempted to put my spare $50 to cash, but I know we have had a good year and with a little patience will probably reach my cash goals within the year. So I will stay the course!

I whipped this up sometime when we were in preschool limbo and we had a few hundred dollars to spare every month. It's worked out well:



As a recap:

short-term "savings" are to be spent within the year (vacation, car repairs, property taxes, insurance, dental, swim lessoms, misc., etc. - everything that is not a regular monthly expense).

mid-term savings - larger expenses expected in more than one year - car replacement and house maintenance, orthodontia, etc. Car repairs for more than I "budgeted" would fall here too, as well as unexpected large bills, etc.

medical savings - we switched to a HDHP and save $250/month on premiums. We save the difference for deductibles and future rate increases.

I've kind of been honing this system for a while, and I am very pleased with it. Once honed, it's been a rather simple and effective savings system. Though we are saving much less than when we both worked, there is much more thought to the big picture. I think the thought makes up for the decrease in savings, in many regards.

Anyway, yes, I already increased my automatic ROTH contributions - starting with July!

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ETA: I do put everything possible on the credit card (for rewards, etc.). It is paid monthly, of course!

Everything not on the card can not be paid with credit cards - bah.

BUT I also worked on this spreadsheet to get an idea what my monthly credit card bills should be - since we recently switched some utilities over to the card, etc. IT can get kind of confusing though since I can put a lot of short-term expenses on the card. It usually runs closer to $2k, BUT I can simply subtract all the short-term items (they tend to be larger/obvious items) and just make sure the rest never tops $1500.

I changed our retirement contributions around.

I made my last 2008 contribution on Monday. We maxed out 2007 due to a windfall but didn't even bother trying in 2008. But I always put as much as I can into the prior year. So if we were to have another windfall, or dh were to return to work, we don't let go of ROTH contributions foolishly.

Anyway, since January I have been contributing $350 per month to MY ROTH simply because it was the only financial institution I Could figure out how to make 2008 contributions to automatically, during 2009.

Dh and I view our retirement (As everything else) merely as "one." That being said, he does not work and I have a pretty awesome retirement plan at work. The only downside, and it is a big one, is that if something happens to me, dh only gets something like 50%. I didn't even necessarily realize this until rather recently when I updated my paperwork to add my children as secondary beneficiaries.

Anyway, so between those 2 factors, I think it is a priority to plump up his ROTH. I will probably get $8k in my work plan this year. We will probably only put $4k-$5k into the ROTHs. Seems fair that it should go to him. (In the meantime, life insurance makes up for this unfortunate fact).

That being said, my boss will retire in a few years and I can roll my work retirement into an IRA. So this is certainly not the situation forever.

I am contributing $50/month, going forward, to my ROTH. Just to keep it rolling. I am contributing $300/month to dh's ROTH starting in May. I just set it all up for automatic contributions. Since the last couple of years we have only been contributing around $100/month max, we have stuck to the "retirement funds" and "Total stock indexes." As I changed things around my $50 continues to go to a "retirement fund" and dh's contributions are 50% total stock index/ 25% international index / 25% balanced fund. We haven't bought much international since the market dropped, so it's good to jump back in at lower prices.

I read something the other day like those Retirement funds are risky. Some are down 50%! Well, sure, if you just contributed once, at the peak, and never looked back. Dollar cost averaging significantly smooths those bumps. My "retirement fund" is down 20% today. I have contributed every month since mid 2007. I became a fan of dollar cost averaging when I had my 401k at my last job. It REALLY helps when the market slides anyway. We've unfortunately contributed most of our retirement monies in 2000-2001 and 2007-2008. Great! Right before the busts. But the dollar cost averaging makes it manageable. The losses are significantly muted. Being able to continue to contribute while the market is in the toilet, does pay off in the long run. WE are literally about breakeven - the balance in our retirement today reflect the initial contributions we have put in the last decade. Which kind of sucks that we don't have gains - but happy to say we truly have not "lost" much.

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This year has been good to us. We met our 15% gross to retirement and 10% gross to cash savings goals in one fell swoop. I was hoping to meet these goals when LM garduated preschool. Our home refinance and his unplanned switch to a much cheaper school has made these possible about 18 months of schedule.

So I have been stepping back and looking at our startegy. My goals are clear. The best way to achieve them are not.

Maxing out the ROTH (basically, maxing out a second one) is clearly a priority. WE are still in a virtually zero tax bracket and we would be crazy not to take advantage.

Other goals are to save for college and to pay down the mortgage ahead of schedule. I will put up with a mortgage that is reasonable and cheaper than renting, in the short term. In the long run we are extremely debt adverse and want it paid off well before retirement.

I am worried about affording our health care, as usual. But besides those types of expected expense increases there is not a lot on the horizon. WE are very content with our "Wants" spending at present. I know dh wants more gadgets and we talk about more grand vacations when the children are older. But those things can wait for a second income or a big raise. In the meantime we are quite content. The nice thing for our wants wish list is most of them are one time expenses. Nothing we necessarily need a permanently increased income for.

I have personally been tempted to stop or greatly reduce ROTH contributions just long enough to get our cash savings up to snuff. It is TEMPTING!!!!!! IF we had $30k in the bank I think our current $5k annual cash contributions would suffice. But with the market in such a tizzy, dh and I decided to continue the ROTH contributions as is. We are instead nearing $20k in the bank, and so have a decent amount of cathing up to do. But for now we are optimistic we can max out one ROTH and get our savings up to snuff in the next year or 2.

As far as maxing out the second ROTH? If we can avoid using our medical deductible, we can max out a second ROTH, maybe in 2010. We could contribute that money to a HSA but I like HSAs about as much as 529s. Lots of fees and little flexibility. Which leaves me of the opinion that HSAs and 529s will be our friend when my spouse returns to work and we have more savings than we know what to do with (& when our income tax rates are higher). In the meantime? Not ready to contribute to a HSA or a 529. They make little sense for people in our situation.

Which leads me to thoughts on college. No one in my family has spent much on college, and prices are still quite reasonable in California. In fact, my parents did not save a dime of money for me for college and since dh's parents are huge college money gifters, my kids have about as much money as my entire college education cost (a whopping $10k) at age 3 & 5. IT's not something I particularly sweat, and is another reason I would not save TONS in a 529. BEcause you get penalized on the money that is not used for college.

I have been thinking about it and maxing out our ROTH would put us about 25% contributions to retirement. Clearly more than necessary (we have always put away 10% - 15%, since we graduated college). As long as we are in this position I have decided not to contribute more money to the kids. The one exception is I may contribute a little more so I Can diversify their funds a bit more. (Since every fund needs a certain minimum). Aside from that, the ROTHs will become triple purposed. They hold some of our cash emergency fund, they hold a decent amount of our true retirement funds, and now they will hold a decent amount of investments for college in the offchance our kids "must" go to Stanford or something along those lines. In the meantime, truth is, their college will probably be paid for by the grandparents anyway. So even if dh returned to work, not sure we would go the 529 route... I view it more as contributing to retirement, but I can still sleep well at night if I am REALLY wrong about the whole college thing.

Which means simply, after thinking about it, the only true goal we have once our retirement vehicles are maxed, is to pay off the house.

Dh's income literally went about 100% to our house when he worked (down payment). & I think we will resume this plan when/if he returns to work. Literally, take his paycheck and pay down the house. It's amazing to me what a huge difference a mere $5k a year in income could make. That would be quite a dent. But yes, I think we have come full circle.

I tend to be extremely idealistic so we shall see. One thing at a time...

I just wanted to share my thinking with my current goals. They always seem to be evolving as circumstances change.

Bad news on the horizon - lots of laid off relatives (news this weekend). It's starting to hit the same old demographic.

I was telling my mom about how it seemed we knew at least one person per household laid off in the 2002 era. & that I Was susprised to not know so many with this new 10% unemployment rate in the state. (Though clearly the layoffs are starting to pile up. Could just be a matter of time). But in reference to 2002 I said, "Everyone was laid off, including us." My mom said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I mean when my husband was laid off in 2002." She didn't remember. She said, "I thought he quit."

I think that nails it on the head. Yes, he was laid off, after working shortened hours and many mandatory unpaid vacations, for about 18 months, in 2002. No one remembers because our savings and preparation made it smooth sailing. At this point everyone thinks it was planned that my spouse has not worked a day in 6 years. Um, NOT planned! But I must admit I am pleased that something that could be so devastating to a newly starting out couple, was barely a bump in the road for us. I am honored that people think we planned things this way. (Though often the same people would say we are lucky to have never had a hardship. Which is kind of annoying. Just because we were prepared didn't mean it wasn't a hardship).

I mean there was a good solid year in there he looked for work - if not longer.

I think this is why I am a true believer in saving. & when I have to roll my eyes when I hear the word "deprivation" as an analogy to saving. I feel like our savings has kept up from feeling deprived.

I'll put it this way - being prepared lessens the hardship blows of life. Indeed.

As for us, we don't dwell on the bad. If I think about it there was plenty of hardship along the way for us. But we don't dwell; we move on.

-------------------------------------

Anyway, along the same lines, FIL will be laid off this summer (government, so lots of notice). He is just going to retire. Now there is a perfect example. Wasn't the plan, but they will make do. They seem surprisingly zen about the whole thing.

It looks like our parents will all be in a position to retire around 60. (Probably sooner, if not for the health benefit issues - my dad is 57 now and I think it's the only reason he is working full-time any more - for benefits). It's interesting to have a number (an age) for retirement. We always look to our parents as our baseline. They are moderately successful, and we seem to have it easier than them at this point in our lives (easier than they did at this age). I know we face very different parameters as well, but it's like. "Hey. Is retiring in our late 50s really out there?" Maybe not?

On the flip side, my parents seem well prepared. My impoverished grandparents were quite able to take care of themselves. My more well off grandparents have done quite well for themselves. Dh's family? His grandma really struggles financially (though not quite the same hardships my own grandparents faced) and we have offered to help out. His parents scare me. I don't think they had any good role models financially like my parents did. So I do worry about them, for sure. But in the short term they seem quite all right. (The panicked and cashed out their retiremet for one - so of course we worry).

Now if my dad told me tomorrow he was retiring, I wouldn't worry about him a bit. So it's a little different. His parents taught him how to save, for sure (purely survival) and my mom's parents were good examples for managing money. They seem to be managing their money a little better. I can't see ever worrying about them.

February went pretty well. I could even almost assume my savings plan was not too optimistic or aggressive (a problem I have - I tend to be too optimistic with everything) BUT February was a short month, so we will see how March goes.



AUTO - Only about $190 for gas (we budget $300). $140 on maintenance - had to clean something on the van (forget the name) and dh replaced windshield wipers on his car. That's about as handy as he gets - hehe. Since our gas was so little, we were able to pay the maintenance from the monthly budget (I usually reserve about $1200/year in savings for that). I don't think we drove anywhere this month (no trips to the snow or the Bay), which explains much!

CASH - Dh pulled out $40 cash for his ebay buying/selling business. (Basically took some of his profits out).

CHARITY - was a contribution to BM's school - their first fundraiser of the year (they seem to do okay - not a lot of begging for money - this was the first time).

CHILDCARE - about $220 for Feb/March preschool tuition. $50 childcare in-between preschools. $50 babysitting for a weekend date.

CLOTHING - I stocked up on work shoes because I actually found some in my size. Way too high heels. They don't make small heels in my size anymore, apparently. I don't know what the heck. But I stocked up while I could find anything. I had NO HEELS for about 6 months.

DINING - Well, we apparently ate out a lot. A few lunch dates with dh. A few cheap things and fast food, lunch date with a friend, met LM & dh for pizza one day, and we ate at the new Indian restaurant by my work twice. (Crazy horrid location - enjoying it while it lasts). But yeah, the appetizers get us there. We spent $20 on $5 lunches? LOL.

EDUCATION - Karate class for March

GROCERIES - squeaked under $500 budget.

HOUSEHOLD - gardener, and spent about $100 on CFL light bulbs.

INSURANCE - got some refunds on home insurance and disability insurance.

MEDICAL - $550 insurance premiums and $385 for the kids' dental checkup.

MISC - I bought a blanket, we went to the movies on our "date", and we went bowling 2 times. Well under budget here, which means we were able to buy my shoes and the light bulbs without touching our slush savings. Dh wants to stock up on printer ink in March.

(We generally try to stock up on stuff during tax season because we are too busy to spend money or go out otherwise).

PERSONAL CARE - LM & I got our hair cut

TO HOUSE LOAN - is just regular principal payment with mortgage.

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Other financial doings:

**Deposited $50 IRS refund in mid-term savings (IRS was slow to pay compared to state - funny enough). Also, deposited $550 state tax refund (I filed before February to be like one of the only people in Cali who got their refund already).

**Deposited $1k to short term savings. (& pulled $385 out for the dental bill).

**Deposited $250 to medical savings

**Deposited $250 to mid-term savings (will be $400 next month with new preschool)

**Deposited $333 to our ROTHs (Will be $350 next month with new preschool. Considering $416 per month with stimulus. We were only contributing $100/month in 2008).

**Earned $650 contribution to work retirement plan

**Earned a whopping $20 interest on cash

**Net worth still at a standstill. We seem to contribute to savings at the rate we lose money in the market.

I got my gas bill and it was only $15. I was trying to beat $22, from last November.

Well, we accomplished this, BUT the bill ended 5 days sooner this year - on the 25th - for whatever reason. So it wasn't very comparable. I think we turned on the heat on the 24th. (It was a 30-day bill, but earlier in the season by a few days. Which could make all the difference).

Then again, we didn't host Thanksgiving last year so I cringed at all the cooking, laundry, hot water, etc. was used/done on Thanksgiving. Not sure it will help my next bill.

The number to beat for December is $75.
(Just trying to improve on last year).

--------------------------------

I updated my totals to the left.

I just hit $2500 again in my savings account, after posting November interest of about $25. Woohoo.

I don't expect it to hold through 12/31. We have to hire someone to fix our gutters next week.

We saved $4200 this year (close to our $5k goal) but spent $1700 on stuff around the house. My goal was to save $5k BEFORE we started catching up on stuff. But broken computers and fridges had other plans. & then I figured what the heck, and started getting caught up on stuff around the house. (Stuff like thermal drapes). So failed spectacularly on my goal, but am not too upset about it. Still moving forward.

It's kind of amazing how things work out. We haven't saved up any money for stuff around the house in years. Low priority since dh stopped working and such. & things have been okay. Nothing broke around the house when we were broke. But this year we start saving for household stuff again and next thing you know we have thousands in unexpected bills. Kind of annoying, but just glad we had the cash for it all. Looking back we had a few lucky years, so it was bound to catch up with us at some point.

My goal is $5k to this fund in 2009. I hope to still have $5k in this fund come 12/31/09. About 50% funded by overtime and interest, and 50% funded by savings. So makes our goal to spend $2500 on home repairs in 2009 (expected) and have $5k going forward. If I get a bigger raise than expected, or any windfalls, this is likely where it would all go. So I would love to make a higher goal. But $5k is rather realistic at this point.

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I don't expect to add any more to retirement this year. So looks like we will hit 12% again. Mostly funded by employer. Goal is 14% for next year. Goal is 20% by 2010. (10% us & 10% employer). So, not hitting it too heavy in 2009. Just trying to move forward. 2010 should be an easy year to divert preschool tuition to retirement.

I'd probably rather focus more on cash savings at this point, BUT with the market so low, we want to take advantage and add more to our retirement next year.

----------------------------

Mortgage - we paid off about $3800 this last year. Next year we will pay closer to $4500. Just regular payments, but considering adding $20/month next year.

It's starting to make a dent!

---------------------------

I haven't looked at our net worth, but Quicken tells us most of our investments are down 30% - 50%. Eh. I'll look 12/31. It won't be pretty!

I depreciated our cars by $4500 this year. I figured since our net worth was in the toilet anyway... A good time to take the hit.

Depreciated dh's car by $500, to $2500. Could probably get $3k-$4k easy for it, the way gas prices have been. (It actually appreciated this year; it gets 40mpg freeway). But I figured to depreciate $500/year going forward. Fair enough. Rather aim conservative.

The gas guzzling van? Plummeted in value this year when gas prices were high. I estimated $12k last year (which is about what we paid for the thing in 2006). BUT I saw them going for $8k when we briefly considered dumping it ourselves. I am sure value has gone back up a bit, but gas prices can also shoot up again. So I figured I'd take the big depreciation hit this year. Will continue to depreciate that one about $1k/year, going forward.

Since the van is like half of my emergency fund (well, was) I tend to keep an eye on prices. So yeah, needless to say I was shocked to see it going for $8k for a time. Yeesh. A big depreciation hit for 2008, for sure.

& with gas prices rock bottom, I am currently glad we didn't dump it. Ask me again later...

----------------------------------

Short-term savings...

I looked at the last year to see where things landed. We have been saving $1k/month. $12k/year.

This is for known, regular, larger expenses (or for anything that's not monthly and regular). So I already know what this adds up to for 2008 - have received all the 2008 bills by this point.

Ended up spending about $13,500 from this fund in 2008:

$4595 Property Tax
$3545 Insurance (Auto, Life, Disability, Home, etc.)
$1550 Vacation
$1225 Dentist (regular checkups)
$1200 Car Maintenance/Repairs
$1300 Misc.

We will probably receive $1k for Christmas to plump up this fund a bit for 2009. Will add $12k again. (I figure we will add another $100/month come 2010, when we have more wiggle room).

Expect property taxes to be about the same next year. (California assesses very differently than most areas - based on purchase price - not volatile market values. So no chance of a decrease next year. It's based on January 1 and values overall are still higher than our assessed value. Not like prices will decrease dramatically by January 1).

Our auto insurance continues to decrease, as well as a lot of our disability and life insurance. BUT our flood insurance is going up something like $500 next year. I think it will all about even out.

Vacation - our plans for 2009 are well within $1500.

Dentist - will go up a bit since LM is now going every 6 months.

Car Repairs - a little more this year than usual, but dh's car is getting pretty old (near 100k miles and though it has pretty much never had any repairs, it is a cheapie car and we expect a lot more upkeep in the coming years), and my car just plain sucks. Always taking it in for door locks and windows and stupid stuff like that. So I expect the same or more next year.

Misc. - where we have room to work with. We put a lot of stuff here when we were squeezed by the cost of 2 in preschool. I think our monthly budget will cover more of this stuff in 2009.

So, will contribute $1k monthly for 2009 and will consider $1100 monthly in 2010.

-------------------

So yeah, just kind of an overall roundup for 2008.

Not a great year, but I am happy to be moving forward. Particularly in this economy.

I usually summarize all my expenses/savings together, but ran out of time yesterday.

So we spent a whole lot of money. What else did we do in October?

*Saved $1k to short-term savings

*Saved $200 to mid-term savings

*Saved $250 to medical savings & added $250 credit card rebate also

*Earned $26 interest (to mid-term fund). Good bye Balance Transfers; this amount decreased much as a result

*Deposited $100 to ROTH

*Earned $625 in work retirement plan

--------

*Pulled $1500 from medical fund for dental and medical bills.

Our deductible could push our medical fund to -$1500 or so, for 2008 expenses. But I figured it was a lot easier to stomach paying all those dental bills out of there, for now. Will tap mid-term savings later, if we have to. IF we ever get BM's ambulance bill, etc.

I guess there is always a slight chance we won't use our deductible next year and we can recover then. Who knows...

*I subtracted $150 from short-term savings for car registration. I did not pull any money out for other things (like life insurance) because fund is depleted for year. Will have to shift to the mid-term fund through 12/31. Need short-term for property taxes and home insurances (will be about $4k due in December).

We have been slowly adding more to this fund every year and are contributing another $100/month over Jan. 1, so I am happy where this fund is for the long run. I think $1k/month is the sweet spot, for now. But a bit behind, since we did not contribute this much when both kids were still in preschool.

Adds up to about $9k for all of our insurances and prop taxes, and about $2k for car repairs and vacation, and maybe $1k for misc. things throughout the year (like Christmas & subscriptions & vehicle registration, etc.).

*Pulled $550 for new drapes and Dec. 31 concert tickets, from mid-term savings. May need to pull a little more out for car service (would have been short-term otherwise) if it hits the card for October.

*Dh earned $125 at a focus group to pay for my ring resize.

& that's October for you. We took care of a lot of stuff. But November we hope will be low key. No "plans" for any bigger purchases or anything from savings.

Truth is though we have a lot of stuff that have been on the back burner for a while, and as our mid-term fund builds up, we are using some of it. I had preferred to wait until the balance was $5k to start touching it, but with all these dental bills and everything... I kind of give up. Maybe we should take care of some things and start over 1/1. Mid-term fund can easily be gone by then. But it is nice to get some stuff done around the house, etc.

There was a lot of talk of savings in the forums that I had been meaning to expand on.

For us, all of this was moot when we made a lot more income (both working). We saved the second wage in cash and trickled it into our ROTHs, and into our house, over the years. We always had enough cash for cars and for property taxes and the like.

I would probably have a more solid/aggressive investment plan next time around. Our loose plan if dh returns to work is to save up his salary for an entire year, cash, to bulk up a hefty emergency fund. & as a hedge if he decided to stop working again, or whatever. From that point on we would do 1/2 investing and 1/2 to mortgage. We assume all our tax-deferred options would be covered by my salary anyway. We could flip a coin which we rather do, so it's both. 50/50. To be re-evaluated with time.

Anyway, when money is flowing in way above your expenses, all that is easy. (To us anyway). We were never big budgeters or anything when we both worked. We just knew our limits.

But with money more tight (on one income) I find we have to do a lot more planning.

Our savings plans has various layers. If the bottom layer fails, the rest of the layers will collapse. It is something we have been working up to with time, and I feel will be pretty solid by the time dh is in a position to return to work. When we won't need it any more. Figures, huh?

*Layer 1 - Short-Term Savings*

The first layer is our short-term savings. For me, this covers every expense within the year that is not a monthly or semi-monthly bill.

We are currently saving $1k/month to this fund (up from $800). I think we are getting there.

This fund covers all of our insurances and property taxes (the bulk of it). It also covers vacation, regular dental checkups, car repairs, subscriptions, Christmas, vehicle license fees, etc. I am sure I am forgetting some things.

If this is not funded, we need to pull money from more long-term savings, to pay current bills. Not Good!

Anyway, our medical fund is along the same lines. Same kind of category. Our deductible is $3k annually and we will likely hit it every year. So we save $250/month for this as well.

As such, this is our first savings priority.

*Layer 2 - Mid-Term Savings*

Our goal is to add $5k annually to our mid-term savings fund. Temporarily we may raise this to $7500 because we have catching up to do. If we had done this all along, we would have maybe $30k in this fund today. (Have not had a lot of expenses lately, since moving here). So yeah, I feel we need to make up for some lost time, but in the long haul, $5k annually should suffice. (We have $3k today and might need it for dental expenses).

I primarily look at this as our new car and house maintenance fund. Other uses would be larger car repairs and stuff like orthodontic expenses. Just larger expenses that are farther in the future.

You could also call it our anti-debt fund. I think this is the kind of stuff the masses put on credit cards and HELOCs, and we just have no desire to do that.

Our one-income strategy was to buy a newer house that should need little work. That has paid off. We have put very little money into this house since we moved in 7 years ago. (Maybe $1500 for some bird proofing??? A new washer and dryer?) We also paid cash for a couple of cars since, so we saved up a lot before we had kids which carried us through a bit.

But for the long run, we will have a lot of house maintenance expenses (some we should be considering now - like painting and replacing the fence).

This fund would also cover furniture and appliances and all that as well. Stuff we just don't spend a lot on, overall.

*Layer 3 - Retirement*

This is the long-term stuff.

For now we are putting 12% to retirement.

We have actually averaged 12% over the last decade or so, amazingly.

My goal is to get retirement up to 15% on one income. With my employer match this could potentially be 25%. But I don't expect to have that extra 10% for the long haul.

15% of my gross right now just happens to be $10k. So maxing our ROTHs is my roundabout goal over the next couple of years.

Anyway, if all my other savings accounts are on track, the less likely I will need to divert retirement savings to bills, or to pull retirement money out to get out of a bind. So it is just another layer in my plan. It goes much better when all the other layers are taken care of.

*Layer 4 - Emergency*

I am not sure where to put my emergency fund in the layers.

I consider this catastrophic savings as we generally have enough savings for smaller emergencies, as is.

I guess the emergency fund would mean we wouldn't have to raid our other savings layers if we did face a large hardship. Ideally anyway.

I have 3 months living expenses in cash & I also could sell our second vehicle for another 3 months expenses (a no brainer if we faced catastrophe - the second auto would go). We also with time should have a fair amount in the mid-term savings fund to divert in case of emergency.

So this is some of my thinking with our emergency fund.

-------------------

Anyway, for now it is a work in progress. But we're getting there. I think once LM is out of preschool we will largely be there. (Can fund the second ROTH at that point, by diverting preschool monies).

I think largely, with the shift to one income, mid-term expenses were largely ignored in our household. This was okay because we had a huge efund going into this (trying to prepare for long periods of bed rest, potential medical bills, or a longer period of time between children, etc., none of which came to be). So we ended shifting a lot of that efund to retirement and mid-term expenses in the end.

The rest of our savings has been rather on track. I would have preferred to put more into retirement, as time progresses. But our health/dental expenses have increased by about $10k per year. So it's just kind of crazy.

On the flip side, a decade of 12% contributions are a pretty solid foundation for a 30-year-old's retirement. I do not feel behind in the least. Could have done better, but I think I will survive. It should only be up from here.

I'll show my expenses over the weekend - the credit card closes Friday.

As of today, I am up to $4890 expenses for September, which is quite reasonable. I like to think our expenses average $4000/month (regular and monthly). & the figure above includes $400 in dental expenses and $400 auto insurance and repairs.

Gas and Groceries were right on - $800. Though I am not sure if dh has to go to the grocery store the next 3 days. Probably, it seems it had been a while. So we may go over. I will encourage him to just get what we need. We certainly have enough food to last through Friday.

So everything was right on, or under budget.

Except one area we completely blew out of the water.

Dining out - $225.

Egads!!!!

LOL.

I almost fell over when I saw that one. I guess it adds up fast.

---------------------------------

I also just added all my interest for the month, to my savings spreadsheet.

& I remembered I will get $250 from the credit card (rewards) next week.

So my mid-term savings will hit $3k next week. Woohoo!

It will be short-lived. Too many expenses coming up.

I also was finally able to get my short-term savings back in the black. Yeesh.

I updated my totals on the left.

(Almost $5k in cash over efund? Eh, easy come, easy go... IT will be gone on a flash - most of the money is earmarked for large expenses).

Oh well, more on all of this later...

----------------------------

Almost forgot, my CD matures next week and my 0% balance transfer is due this month. So this was my last month of $90 interest. That figure will drop to $40 interest, next month. *sigh* It was fun while it lasted though!

To help make up for it I am now saving $200/month. The interest was really nice when times were tighter. Easy money. But now I can pick up the slack (& improve on it).

I was just updating Quicken and noticed our retirement balance is a solid $75k. For now anyway.

This is actually my gross salary for the year. So one years' saved!

Of course, the interesting thing about measuring your goals in terms of salary, is that I for one, had already met this goal last year (maybe the year before). Likewise, in past years I way exceeded this goal (because my income was much smaller...)

So though $75k is a new milestone for me, I can't say the one year salary saved is a new or exciting milestone... It is turning into an impossible moving target that makes me feel a little at a standstill.

If dh returned to work tomorrow it would be a long road to save up one year of salary.

Which probably illustrates much why I so love the idea of measuring progress against "annual expenses."

I guess this idea particularly makes sense for us.

In school we both made $10k annually. Out of school we made $60k combined, and that quickly climbed to $100k.

But then we slowed down for kids and lived a couple of years on $45k (the years I took maternity leave anyway). But my full salary was a mere $50k when I had my first child. In the meantime, my income has ballooned to $75k rather quickly. Though a good chunk of the last decade we really made less than $60k. So it is hard to measure progress in terms of an ever growing income.

Of course, no complaints on the ever-growing income.

But our expenses, on the other hand, have remained rather steady. Probably a bit of a jump when we bought our first home (okay, a significant jump since we lived on pennies before that). & probably a bit of a jump when we had kids. But overall our expenses have remained rather steady and predictable. So we find that a much better measure of our forward progress.

We generally live on $50k-$60k annually (after taxes) so we are trying to grow our net worth half of that, annually. ($25k-$30k/year). If our income grows astronomically (possible, could double if dh returned to work) and our expenses remain the same (possible) than we really need to work on goals that support our lifestyle, not our income. So this is where a lot of our thinking on expenses comes in. Income means little to us. (Which is the ideal!)

But $75k is a milestone, indeed. Of course, I was wondering, recently, when our cash and retirement would hit $100k. I think we will probably hit it in 2009. Not so sure on 2008. But we'll see. (We have a fair amount of cash, in addition to our retirement investments).

We've also paid a good $90k off our house. So our more liquid assets seem to be neck and neck with how much we have invested in our house.

I expect that to change greatly in the future. Our goal in the nearer future is to put away $10k/year to retirement, in addition to 10% contributed at my job. So ideally our retirement will be growing $18k/year or so, plus investment returns, while we are only paying the minimum on our mortgage, about $4k principal every year.

I think our 20s was our decade of home ownership. & we have accomplished a chunk there. I would like our 30s to be the decade of retirement funding. Which is also why I don't sweat the mortgage prepayment. We worked very hard while young to keep our mortgage costs down (putting a chunk down and paying it off aggressively). That work will save us tens of thousands, if not more, in the long run. So it feels like it is off to the next battle - Retirement!

Likewise, I look forward to do the day our cash/investments far exceed our mortgage.

Well, we're getting there.

Anyway, I don't think we will put $10k to our IRAs anytime REAL soon. My goal is about $1500 this year, and $5k next year. But I think we may make it in 2011, when LM is entirely out of preschool. Working up to it. So though our goal is $10k/year, to IRAs, we got a ways to go.

Of course, in our 20s, retirement was only a mere afterthought, after the token 10% contributions we have always done. So I look forward to what we can do with retirement as the forethought. I expect to zoom ahead rather quickly... In fact, my roundabout goal has been $150k in retirement by age 35... (So doubled in 4 years?). Kind of aggressive, but doable.

Well, as we move past the expensive months of April & May, summer should be pretty good to us. (I hope!)

June is our last payment to our mortgage where interest exceeds $1,000. Woohoo! Our July interest payment is $999.99 (something like that - hehe).

Psychological, yes, and little more. But it is still nice.

Dh told me he is waiting for our principle payments to exceed the interest portion. Agreed, but so that is so long in the future I have to find something sooner to get excited about. We also drop below the $200k balance in 2010. So that will be cool too. Another psychological advance...

Of course, as usual, looking at it - I am tempted to throw $50/month to the mortgage, extra, next year.

I talked myself out of it for now.

Another $150/month would really put us at our goal to pay off in our 40s. Quite simple really. BUT doesn't make much sense for now.

The other thing about this summer is the stimulus check (which will help greatly) and the removal of one child from the ever expensive preschool.

So summer seems like a turning point of sorts, for us financially.

As of summer I hope to have:

*Replenished the $1k I unexpectedly owe the IRS and sucked out of the emergency fund for now.

*$3k balance in our mid-term savings (which has been 0 for a while).

*Contributing $315/month to our ROTHs. (bumps our retirement savings to 15% from 12%. Phew).

I really hope to have another $100/month raise come next year to allocate to the ROTHs and get to the max for one roth and about 17% income to retirement. From there I think it is a good spot and we will just try to increase it 1% a year. (Minimum anyway. Certainly more if we have bigger raises or windfalls).

*Up our short-term savings from $900 monthly to $1k monthly, which really should suffice to cover more of the unexpected things (like a similar IRS bill).

So I would say our retirement and short-term savings should be in pretty good shape come summer.

As tempting as it is to earmark a token $50 to the mortgage, I know we really need to focus on getting our mid-term savings up to snuff. My goal is to save $5k this year, but we have some catching up to do AND I will barely squeak by this but for the help of a large stimulus check.

Of course, I also just remembered the other competing want is college money for the kids. With BM our of expensive preschool I had considered saving $50/month for that.

There's only so many directions it will go. But I admit that is probably where the money is best spent, for now.

Short-Term Savings up to snuff
Retirement up to snuff
Work on BM's college money

I guess all I can hope for is a really decent raise next year so I can put some more to mid-term savings as well. We have cars to save up to buy and home maintenance to save up for.

Dh may consider some temp work with the kids in school. I am not sure we are hot on the idea right now, but the option is certainly nice. It could significantly help the cash savings. (For now is working on a movie script and a movie which I rather him do now while he has some significant child rearing to do. BEcause lord knows I will be pushing for more income if we are not doing better when LM starts public school. Just giving him the space to do his thing for now).

Getting there, but still a ways to go...

Getting so close to where we were before we dropped to one income... That part is nice. I don't think we expected to get back to this point, so soon, on my income alone. & I am excited as we near this sort of crossover point where we are so close to getting back to a larger measure of financial security.

We've done without a lot of savings and retirement contributions and a lot of things as we slowed down to raise kids. I didn't exactly imagine with time we would find a way to have our cake and eat it too (so soon anyway). Our lifestyle for now is far cushier than I imagined it would be when we made sacrifices for our kids. For that I am extremely grateful.

& I am certainly enjoying!

The idea of putting $5k in a ROTH next year is DIVINE. To me, that is luxury.

I wish I could share more what we have done to keep food costs down, and why we barely notice a dent in our budget with rising food prices. But, that is not my department. That is dh's. He does his job well. The better he keeps our costs down the less I care if he ever works again. But I think that is what a lot of people don't get. Though he doesn't bring in income, he has much more time to work on cutting costs. Which is the same in the end. Upping our cash flow.

Anyway, all I can share is what we are eating. I actually am very bad at eating fruits and veggies so every morning I take a small cup of apple sauce. Dh buys the giant containers of apple sauce and I pour a small amount into one of the kids' portable cup (with flat lid) to take to work. I used to drink juice in the mornings. I find this to be a healthier way to get some fruit in my system.

The kids are snacking on graham crackers before preschool. They'll eat a proper breakfast there. (Included in tuition. Which to be fair, does include a fair amount of meals).

The kids will also eat lunch and snacks there all day. I guess to keep in mind that the kids have 2 lunches a week over there, which I am sure impacts our grocery bill somewhat.

For lunch I will eat leftover burritos and rice. I find burritos to be the "perfect" leftover food. I actually requested that dh cook a good leftover meal this week since we didn't seem to have any. (Insert that I am a picky eater - we have lots of leftovers - but I also like things that are easy to pack). So he made them last night.

Dh will eat some leftovers most likely. HE doesn't eat breakfast.

I am not sure what dh has up his sleeve for dinner.

I have a couple of things of yogurt at work in case I ever get hungry. I never seem to lately.

We have some snacks at work (kind of rare - but I know I will probably have a free cookie with my apple sauce today. )

The only other thing I can say is I am a pepsi fiend. BUT I find $1-$2 for a serving of pepsi to be quite insane. I used to keep cans at work, but I tend to over drink them. So I have taken to getting my pepsi fix in the morning. I usually just take a giant plastic cup and pour a small amount of pepsi in there (1/2 can at most) and get my fix in the morning. That way I can take it to work, and not over drink pepsi. (I keep 2 litres at work sometimes, but then I just drink too much. So this is where I am at for now).

Anyway, when I finish my pepsi then I fill up my giant cup with lots of water. Water is free at work. At home we drink tap water (mostly filtered through the fridge).

I have also in the past, reused smaller pepsi bottles and poured small portions in, so I could keep it fresh and fizzy for lunch.

That is how we keep our soda costs down.

I really like the 1/2-sized cans, but we stopped buying them because they are rather expensive. I find those to be perfect serving sizes.

I am toying with the idea of going on a soda diet to lose these few pounds. It will be REALLY hard. But part of the reason I have been losing weight is I have been so sick these last few months and I can NOT drink soda when I have a cold. It is the only time I can not stand soda. So I think the 3-4 weeks I was too sick to drink soda made a difference.

I am trying to warm up to the idea.

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In other news, I had been wanting to save up enough money to invest the kids' UGMA a little more aggressively. Right now I have $1k each (abouts) in Vanguard Star. BEcause it had a $1k minimum. But overall would prefer something more aggressive.

Anyway, I have heard a lot of good things about T Rowe Capital Appreciation. I heard it touted as a balanced fund, and when I look at it, I don't see it. But then again, it like has never had a down year (until now). It looks like the kind of aggressive thing I am looking for. A little more aggressive, but rather "safe" all the same. IT has some bonds I guess which makes it balanced. Though it is much more stock heavy than something like Star.

Anyway, I heard the idea on the radio and am considering it. When I looked up the fund it looked rather promising.

Yesterday Thriftorama was asking about education savings and I was looking up Coverdells a bit since I don't know much about them.

I am more confused than ever! LOL. Honestly, none of my clients are saving for college or ask about it. Why I haven't a clue - I just don't deal with this area of the tax code much.

I thought 529s could pay for transportation and room/board, but everything I read yesterday said no. I honestly think those were old articles because I did have a client who used their 529 for this stuff last year and I remember double checking all the rules. So I share that as a caveat to be careful what you read. The rules have changed much over the last few years. Though it leaves me feeling I have MUCH brushing up to do.

I also was reading about ESAs (Coverdells) and thought they looked pretty darn appealing. I do not like how 529s are so limited (in investment choices). ESAs are much the same, but with dollar limits. But can be used for more expenses and can be invested just about anywhere. I was just about sold until I read they expired in 2011, though it took me a while to research if that was still true.

Yes.

Most of their benefits expire anyway.

But they can be transferred into 529s.

Anyway, I also read something new that I did not know. With the Coverdells, if the oney is not used for education because your child gets a scholarship, there is no penalty. I had not realized that. That had been one of my beefs with college savings plans all alonog - what if your child got a full scholarship? I know a lot of people who have. & as my kids are rather bright, I don't think it is a false hope that they may have a paid-for education.

Anyway, so this is much of what I learned yesterday.

From what I could glimpse, and considering how little ESAs are given any credence in the investment community, I think the writing is on the wall that these will probably get phased out. Kind of a shame. I always prefer to invest in things like ROTHS where you can invest almost anywhere, as opposed to 529s and HSAs which are VERY limited.

I am leaning towards funding an ESA for the kids this year, keeping in mind if my prediciton is right we can roll it to a 529 in future years (maybe when there will be more investment choices). The minimum is $1k at T Rowe. !!!! Perfect. The kids will probably get $1k each for their birthday and that is what I am thinking for now. I already have a T Rowe account, so will be easy to add those on.

I am also considering if I will resume $50 monthly contributions for BM, once he is done with preschool. That money only has so far to go and I wanted most of it to go to ROTHs. BUT I always go back to as long as I am getting 10% retirement contributions from my boss, as long as I am saving, it matters little where it goes. It probably is more useful towards college than towards our retirement, while we have such a retirement windfall. Plus the more we get in college earlier the less we will have to save later.

I am thinking of diverting $50/month for BM, and then the same for LM when he is done with expensive preschool.

Well I have a couple of months to think on this.

Dh bought a blu-ray disk with a $10 rebate.

I applied for the rebate a couple of weeks ago and it already arrived. (Disney?). Kudos to Disney - fastest rebate I ever got. You know, we constantly apply for rebates and have never had problems (knock on wood). But 6-10 weeks is usually the wait...

Anyway, my mid-term savings balance is $485. I considered transferring the $10 over to the mid-term savings, plus $5, for an even $500.

Heck I'd put that $10 to my IRA if I could. Too small to deposit... Though I guess I could add it to my next auto transfer, but that's just a pain.

Anyway, I also realized I was coming out ahead with this. Dh buys all his blu-ray movies out of his allowance. But I am sure I counted the whole cost. The rebate is a bonus. Gets him to spend less though he justified it only with the great rebate. Well, I just realized this anyway. But I am not adding it back to his allowance. It's gravy.

The only other thing is I am running a $75 or so surplus in the checking account. We'll see how April goes. We don't pay cash for much, but want to get the carpets cleaned. For all the rooms I estimate $75. I think I will deposit this $10 and leave it there until we get the carpets cleaned. Maybe this will kick my butt. I have been thinking about it for a while and pulled out the business card for the wonderful guy we hired in 2006. BUT I haven't called yet...

So yeah - might need it for the carpet cleaning. We'll see. If not, maybe to savings... Want to wait and see how much the carpets cost first.

We don't wear shoes in the house and generally haven't found much need for carpet cleaning. (Plus though our house is large not all the rooms are utilized all the time). BUT the family room is completely thrashed. Would have preferred to wait unil LM is fully potty trained. But it's kind of embarrasing. A couple of hallways could use it. Plus the upstairs bathroom (don't ask me whose bright idea it was to carpet the sink area? Ugh), upstairs hallway (old potty accidents) and the kids' rooms. Dh's idea. Not sure the kids' rooms really need it, but whatever. All that and might as well go over our room to.

We paid $40 before for most of the downstairs. I remember I paid the guy $50 because I thought it was terribly cheap for all he did. So I don't expect it to be much more to add 2 rooms, but we'll see.

It's sposedly likie eco friendly stuff too, but lord if I really buy that. But we haven't cleaned the carpet much with small kids, because of the chemical concerns.

Well if we do get them cleaned, next week I would hope, I think we will institute a no drink rule in the downstairs living areas. Most of the carpet stains are juice from LM's sippy cups. HEck, we should probably outlaw sippy cups. He'll be 3 soon.

I realize when he's potty trained we may need to re-shampoo the carpet. But that's okay. I just don't think it could wait (which means, yeah it's bad. Cleanliness is not usually a main concern of mine).

My parents are the type who would do their own carpets. Spend an entire Saturday shampooing the carpet. Ugh. I didn't get all the frugal genes. I'll go work 1-3 hours on a Saturday to pay the carpet guy. Much preferred. Just how I roll. I value my time and appreciate having the wage to afford it.

Well, in my last post, I shared how I keep track of all of my savings buckets, in excel. But I ran out of time to post visuals.

So, here is my running total for my Short-Term savings account. Kind of sad, but it generally has a decent balance most of the year and we drain it in April and December. It's not just property tax time, but when all our bills seem to come due.

& I didn't expect the IRS bill at all, which really puts me in the red for April.

& to clarify, I am adding $450 every paycheck, for now. But upping that to $500 come summer.



Likewise, I add up all the funds as such. I just came up with this spreadsheet though, to reconcile to my actual cash balances. Wouldn't you know it, I was only $2 off. So not bad (better than I expected). I will probably try this method going forward.

I figured it is probably not terribly prudent to share all the balances I have at each of my financial institutions (down to the penny). So I blacked out all the names. I have 2 online savings accounts, a local savings account, and a CD with that same bank (the famed 5.7% CD I have through the end of the year).

Likewise, I have 2 balance transfers I am still earning interest off of.



Of course, since most of that is in a CD, and I don't have a lot of liquid cash, the 7% CD offer from Patelco CU is rather tempting, but hard to justify for now. I probably have more that I would like tied up in my CD as is. I guess 5.7% isn't half bad though.

On the flip side, my overtime bonus is due soon. I think $5k is about my comfort level. The bare minimum I prefer to have in liquid cash at all times. But I expect to be there within the end of the month, with my bonus.

OF course, how lucky is it that the one year I have a 4-figure IRS bill is the one year the IRS wants to send me $1800. I call that lucky. I would have much preferred to plump up my other savings, etc. But yeah, it saves my bacon.

Finally, I keep my emergency fund spread out in a few different places. So keeping track of that as well:



My goal is to let the interest in my ROTH cash account (ROTH EFUND) accrue to $7k cash. Then it will be easy to keep $5k cash for the rest of my efund.

Likewise, once my ROTH cash hits $7k, I will divert the interest on it to my retirement "bucket." Will invest it.

I have $1350 of my efund in my checking account to pay bills earlier (less running to the bank on payday). But down the road I will probably use my mid-term fund for that. It's not a great place for an efund, though I am not particularly concerned about it either. I have no desire to drain my efund, no matter where it is.

I read something this week about how people are really bad budgeting month to month, but were generally good at budgeting on an annual basis. Just interesting, as I tend to be more big picture, and look at things at more of an annual level. The month to month doesn't really matter so much to me. I mean I am not going to get caught up in the fact that I had a LOT of expenses in April, and my short-term savings account is negative right now. Mostly well known and planned for... In April my summary will be UGLY as I will have expended $4k in one-time bills. But that's okay. May/June tend to be pretty low expense months, by contrast...

IT helps me to look at the big picture.

Reminds me I read a comment before about not having "typical months." I agree - I never have a typical month. But we do tend to have typical years. Which I guess is a perfect example of what the article tried to say. (Likewise, if we had a large emergency, we would likely cut back on other expenses for the rest of the year, etc. Our budget is very flexible, and I think that is another reason. If you have some expensive months early in the year, I think people tend to reign in more later in the year then, etc.)

Anyway, without further ado - here's March (just one small slice of my year):



Allowance - $0 - I just noticed dh and I didn't spend any of our discretionary money this month. Weird. LOL.

Auto - $650 repairs/maintenance & $200 fuel (was a good month for us - no long trips - phew). Car repairs paid from short-term savings.

Childcare - an extra $100 this month. LM went to school one day when dh was sick. & we also registered for a drop-in childcare and tried it out. Which was an AWESOME splurge - to get a date out. We are committed to one date a month (even if we can only afford the childcare, and stay home. It's not the going out, but the childcare which is SO nice).

I just sent off the preschool payment for April, and only 2 full months (of 2) to go. I tell you, I am thrilled.

Dining - $20 my lunches out for the month. $10 was a lunch date dh and I had Monday actually. WE are going to start up twice a month. Oh - and almost $30 on our sushi date. We splurged on a trip to McDs to get the kids out of the house early in the month. So it was a more spendy than usual month in this regard, but this is going to go up with our effort to enjoy more. Lunch dates if nothing else - $20/month for 2 lunch dates are not bad. This week we had buffet at Round Table - it was a pretty good deal - 2 for $10 (and sodas).

We dropped the cloth diaper service which was $50/month and kind of find we have some room in the budget. & I think dining/dates is the area we feel most deprived. So where we decided to put that money.

& with the economy we have coupons out our ears (particularly lunch which is why we are trying to take advantage when kids are in school anyway). This is a perfect example when things go bad for everyone else, the frugal prevail. I just feel like life is better/easier lately.

Entertainment - monthly blockbuster

Groceries - pretty average month - includes a lot of household stuff

Household - gardener - I still LOVE our gardener.

Medical - insurance premiums and around $200 in prescriptions/appointments/medical tests

Misc - some toys, some easter stuff, some household items from the dollar store. A trip to the movies. & $130 for a show. (We usually budget $150 here, but we were way under on the gas budget and we had extra income to pay for the show).

Personal Care - I got a haircut (rare, indeed)

Utilities - down because I had a free month on my cell phone ($80 off), and the water company did not bill water. They said they were ready to meter water late last year, but they don't seem very prepared for me. Took forever to get set up, and then last month they didn't even bill me for water? We'll see... They generally bill every other month and had been for a short while. Just not on my bill the last 2 months. Strange.

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*As you see, we deposited $100 to our ROTHs. (1.5% income)

*Earned $625 in work retirement plan. (10% income)

*We added $250 to our medical fund and pulled out $130 for doctor visits. We still have not received a bill from the ambulance/emergency room early in the year. ??? But I now have the cash to cover it... (I think!)

*Added $100 interest to our mid-term savings fund.

*Paid off one balance transfer, leaving 2 (which is why we are earning so much interest - all the balance transfers). Interest will go down next month.

*Saved $900 for short-term bills (& this account was drained, and then some, for April, already).

I think that about covers it...

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I went through and paid all the April bills. I am waiting for the water bill (the one that always comes rather late - will come on the 15th and be due the 20th - just how it seems to be. Drives me nuts). Also, waiting on the final credit card #. I think we might hit $2k this month. Which doesn't help me - we get a bonus if we hit $2k each of the next 3 months. Who knew March would be such a spendy month...

But card closes tomorrow and we have no plans to spend anything until Friday. We'll see...

April cash flow looks good. We want to get the carpets cleaned and I have some cash in the bank for that - as well as for a trip to the ATM for our outing next weekend.

(I still can't believe we splurged so much last month and it was all well within budget. Was a nice month).

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
-------
$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.

I figured I'd make this a new post because it is interesting.

I mentioned, in a prior blog, that my dh knew that Target took returns without receipts, and that he tried to return an old game we had gotten in 2004 (from Toys R US actually). & they took it.

I got a comment on my blog that this was nearly impossible - Target has terrible return policies.

Likewise, as I did a web search for Target return policies all I saw was a slew of websites about how HORRID Target's return policy was. (We aren't big on returns so I didn't really know or care. I mean we usually have recipts and return things within the week if we don't like it, etc. Not big on playing the return game, so this knowledge had completely alluded me).

So I commented that I would have to ask dh how he knew about this policy. I really had no idea. (& to clarify what the policy was. I read somewhere online that they take returns under $25 with no receipt. Not sure if it was recent or accurate. But it did ring a bell for me).

So I asked dh. The story was that he had some extra Blu-Ray disks and was wondering, in January, if he could return them to Target. (There was no receipt). So he called and asked Target. They actually said they would take the movies with no receipt if they were under $20. That they allow 2 returns per year with no receipts, for under $20.

To be clear, this was probably for store credit; not cash. (This could be where some of the confusion is?). That's same as cash to me, as much as we shop Target.

So I thought, "Aha!" This is good fodder to remind everyone why it never hurts to ask for things!

Anyway, in the movie case, Target had them priced at $25 and would not take them. Dh was willing to use up his "2 returns" for the year for $40, but they wouldn't bend. They were over $20 so they wouldn't take them.

In the end he got $40 or more from Best Buy instead. I am not sure why he singled out Target except it's close and maybe they charged more for the movies... I don't know. Best Buy is certainly a bit of a drive.

So anyway, when we found this 4-year-old board game with the old design, he figured he'd try their policy, on a whim. Probably the convenience factor.

Likewise, they sell the game for $20, but were willing to give him $14 store credit on this particular game. Lord knows why $14. But I knew it was the easiest and best deal we'd get.

So that is the full scoop...

Also, the whole thing reminded me that dh bought his PS3 at Target, and that they dropped the price by $100 exactly 91 days after he had bought it. We obviously knew the 90-day policy, but figured it never hurts to ask. He said he just asked politely for a price match though he knew he was one day late, and they gave him $100 credit. That was about it.

So you know, return policies are not always completely set in stone!!

I guess this is also a good reminder to keep those receipts. Dh always keeps every receipt on bigger purchases because he regularly watches the ads and price matches thing. I say most of the time he buys something big it goes on sale within months. Murphy's Law, but not when you have the receipt.

I guess I keep receipts too, but I just don't shop that much.

I was looking for a game or puzzle or something and pulled out a few from the closet for ebay or Craigslist.

The main one being Cranium. Someone gave it to me for Chsristmas in 2004, and fankly I hate the game.

Dh got annoyed at me when he saw there was a receipt taped to the bottom. !!!!!

I had to admit that I might have known it was there, but kept it around for friends who love the game. Of course, nice as that gesture was, the game has never been opened.

Dh said Target had a good return policy and he would try to take it there. He cased it out first and said the new boxes look very different and who knows if they would take it.

For whatever reason, he tried today and they gave hime $14.

Not bad...

It retails $20. I think we would be hard pressed to find $14 for it otherwise, much less with so LITTLE effort. So I am really rather pleased with this find.

Dh used the money for Easter stuff and some groceries at Target.

Anyway, he was really peeved at me when he saw the receipt. But he couldn't be peeved for long. I had actually found some nice shirts in a box (from EARLIER than 2004 - indeed). No doubt from his mom, which she buys him clothes every year that he never wears. They looked nice and simple and so I hung them up in the closet. When he saw them he asked where the hell did they come from and he never intended to wear them.

I don't think I brought up the receipt to him, though it did peeve me. Not sure why he didn't just return them then.

So when he brought it up I told him there was a good $30 or more in unreturned goods in his closet. so yeah, be careful who you point that finger at.

I think we will be double checking each other's tossed aside gifts going forward. LOL.

I also redeemed my BK coupon today. Got an entire chicken sandwhich value meal for $2.50 (saved $3.65 since the sandwhich was free). Not bad!

I saved 1/2 the sandwhich for tomorrow. Was WAY too much food. But will stretch out nicely to 2 lunches with a yogurt from home and some water from the tap.

Oh, one final thing. Dh called to redeem our free month from Verizon (by signing up for a year contract). Anyway, I don't remember the last time I called Verizon. I never call them. I leave that stuff to dh. He has called many times to turn on roaming if we went on vacation (to the east coast and such). He was the one who called to change our plan last year. HE totally changed our plan to a new one and signed a one-year contract.

So he calls today and they say they won't even talk to him because he is not on the account.

Go figure.

LOL.

So now I have to waste my time calling them. Bah. I knew we went through this ages ago but I thought we had gotten that squared away, ages ago. Figures.

I was fixing up all my spreadsheets for 1/1. My file got corrupted and I lost a lot of my 2007 data. But that's okay. I had a recent enough backup that I didn't have to do much. I am starting over 1/1 on much anyway.

Anyway, I Was glancing at our retirement for the year. & it looks pathetic. It was really a pathetic retirement year. There is more to the story, but firstly I wanted to share because I see lots of talk about fear of the market in the forums. For the young people starting out.

So here it is:



The amazing this is this is how much we have amassed all the years when we had MUCH bigger priorities than retirement. When we were saving $50k for our house. When we were simplifying our income and lifestyle to have kids. Yet we still made decent progress without a lot of effort.

Well, we graduated college in 1999 and I was eligible for a 401k in 2000. I contributed 10% of my income for about 18 months before I left that job. Most of my money was put in 2001. (& latter 1/2 of 2000). It has been far been my best investment. A co-worker helped me pick 3 mutual funds, for a mix of 15% bonds and 85% stocks. I never thought about it since. But the monthly contributions helped lessen the blow when the market "Crashed." & I returned 12-30% each year, the years following. (I recently moved this money to managed funds, which muted my returns this year).

On top of that we shoveled some money into IRAs. $4500 in 2000 when we made good money. The rest are IRA contributions we made over the years. Skipping the years I took maternity leave and we just didn't have the income.

So dissapointingly, 2007 was our worse retirement year since my last 2 maternity leaves. BUT we got our efund back up to snuff. So that is why.

I also vest in my employer plan this year, which I have mostly ignored to date (as I wasn't much vested before). It is a 10% annual contribution and interestingly the balance is about $33k. So makes our retirement exactly 1/2 controlled by us and 1/2 in my employer-controlled plan. But is also why we didn't sweat retirement this year. I received in essence a $10k contribution with my vesting this year.

But that graph just reminds me, slow and steady wins the race.

Our returns were really muted after 2001 because most of dh's IRAs were in a broker who had us in very volatile/risky/expensive investments. He never had much in returns. My IRA was in cash (like 1%). Don't ask why.

We moved everything around last year. My cash now earns almost 6%. & dh is in a bunch of indexes so he has had an awesome return (no fees). My portfolio is a little more experimental and I bought one fund very high, late in the year. So my IRA shows a slight loss for the year. I'm still learning. I like mutual funds and studying them and picking them and playing with them. But the antecdotal evidence in our case is that the indexes kick butt. Little effort, small fees, good returns. Even when you invest a good chunk at the peak...

Which is probably, why, interestingly, I primarily want to invest in dh's IRA and my Target Retirement fund, going forward. It's the simplest and most effective way. I have smaller dollars in my experimental funds. But I don't aim to make those a large part of my portfolio, or to add more. As far as the indexes, we aim to do more dollar cost averaging going forward. We haven't done that since my 401k. We usually just add a chunk every April 15th to save some taxes. But I am currently putting $50/month into a Target Retirement fund and aim to put another $300/month to dh's indexes, come fall. It is my feeling that our investments performed the best when we added a little every month.

The only flaw in my old 401k was I had no exposure to international. Dh has a lazy fund portfolio - Vanguard Star, Vanguard Int'l & Vanguard Total Stock. His portfolio is up 10% for the year. It seems to be working quite well though. I kept his portfolio simple, in case anything every happened to me. & we tend to contribute more to his IRA overall since I have my own employer plan.

As far as my employer plan, I was really disgusted with the returns. But I thought twice about this. My boss does not contribute my contribution until September of the following year (tax deadline). When I look at my balances again, and consider that the money does not get there until the following September. It is actually earning a good 10% annually. So I feel better about that. Phew!!!!!! I look forward to controlling that down the road. But sometimes it is nice to know I have a more conservative portfolio managed by someone else, in case I really screw up or something. Hehe. But yeah, if I quit Jan. 1, the money is mine. Though my boss generally does not contribute it to the last minute. Hey, beggars can't be choosers.

I highly doubt we will make it this year. But my goal overall is once the kids are out of preschool, is to contribute 10% of our income as well. On top of that just save our raises, until we max out. Right now the $10k IRA max, for the 2 of us, is about 15% of my income. So yeah, in 2010, 2011, 2012. I expect to contribute much more than we have been historically. We'll see...

I think the other interesting thing in our case was that we had so much cash saved up when we went down to one income, that our retirement contributions were not really affected until we had our second child. (Our income was halved but we were still contributing in the $5k range annually). But that is when we started living up to our income a little more. & retirement was just never a priority to us. It was a tax savings thing. So it is a different mindset for us now. If that is what we can accomplish without thinking much about it. What can we accomplish with retirement at top of mind? I think that's the exciting thing.

So I share because of that. But don't freak out because the stock market goes down one day. You need to look at that big picture!

I actually made an effort to keep a large cash portion in early 2006 because I thought the market was going to tank. Instead it was our best year bar none (cash and all). So what do I know? But gee am I glad I kept a good chunk in stocks too. That's certainly another lesson I can share. I am not buying the 100% stock portfolio anytime soon. But too much cash can be even worse... I am learning.

ETA: As of today I am up 4.83% for the year. One day can make a BIG difference!!!!

Well I did my Christmas budget and came out about to a budget of about $600. What we ended up spending last year. Last year we spread it out over 3 months, and this year I am a little slow to the game. However, expect a lot of Christmas cash.

Figure we'll buy gifts this month (love to have them wrapped up by Thanksgiving - generally my goal. I don't do stress and all that and always strive to make Christmas relaxing as possible. Plus work is crazy, all the more reason to be ahead of the game so I can focus on work - if you must know the truth!).

I know, it's funny, I worked here 6 years and yet dh continually forgets that it is hard for me to get time off around Christmas. At my old job I always took a good week or two (had flex time and sure worked a LOT of hours the rest of the year). So it's been kind of bummer to only get one day off. Often working the weekends and such. BUT the last few years Christmas or our Christmas holiday fell on the weekend. So dh tells me we are doing our usual Christmas Eve thing and I am like, um, well I'll be at work. I feel like we go through this every year. As for me, I decided to take the week of Thanksgiving off every year. Doesn't cut so much into my vacation as a full week off, and is also nice with all the preparation as we host every year. We just have the most room. (& I LOVE a holiday where we don't have to drive 2 hours each way!!!) With Japan & Vegas that is out the window this year.

Oh anyway, as far as the budget, like $200 is for our families who were so extremely generous to us this year, and $50 to my boss's gift. He'll give me $200 or so, and I'll give $50. Seems fair. I really appreciate him. So yeah, that is about 1/2 the budget. There really is not a lot to it in the grand scheme of things. Presents in November and then December we will work on all the donations. I can put them on the card and pay them in January after we get all the Christmas cash - so though we are one month behind, I think it will work out just fine.

We also went through the kids' wish list and decided that they don't need much. We want to get a $40 train table for LM and could not decide on much for BM. But they get so spoiled we kind of just want to get them both one nice toy (& only that. We have piles of free books and games and such from Scholastic as well). I saw a $30 scooter and figured BM would LOVE it so will probably go for that. We were thinking of getting LM a leapster. BM has one and LM loves the thing (just getting old enough to use). But the new ones use a different battery charger so we were looking at $100 for the whole package. (Gee I wonder if the old games are compatible - I assume yes since dh did not mention but who knows). It would be very excessive, BUT LM generally gets little but hand-me-downs. I thought it would be a really nice gesture. We thought better of it though, and I think that is good. Dh mentioned BM is really outgrowing it and with the whole charger situation it just doesn't make sense. So we saved quite a few dollars there.

That leaves the next biggest item on my list to spoil my nieces. & I do have twice as many this year. So my mom called me last night to say she had a $10 Kohls coupon (just a $10 minimum purchase - I LOVE those) and she was going to send it to me. Woohoo. I figure I might get one in the mail too. Keeping a sharp eye out. I can swing some cute outfits for the nieces with $20. So will cross my fingers on that.

In other news, it is *that* time of year. Time to see what our health insurance premiums bring. Blech... We're at $675 for a lesser plan and I can not imagine paying more. On the flip side, we are in a position now with all the permanent birth control measures to maybe keep the kids on this plan and dh and I would consider taking boss's crappy plan. Not happy about it and not even sure if we would save much money. But will have to evaluate again. I think it's something like $350 to cover the kids now and $250 to cover dh on boss's plan (I'd be covered). Plus dh's portion would be pre-tax, which is huge. So it is something to consider. That would be around a $100 savings perhaps, today. Just not sure it is worth it for much lesser coverage. Probably not... Higher deductibles and all that. (But I think the catch is no quite high enough to qualify for a HSA. Plus we really wouldn't save enough to heavily contribute - and so on).

Well, probably will know in a week or 2... I just DREAD this time of year. But some part of me thinks at least it can't be as bad as last year (40% increase for turning 30 last year!!!!!!). Of course, at $673/month, the usual 10-20% increase is too frightening to think about.

Oh maybe a bit dramatic, but today is not off to a good start.

I paid $3200 on my card for Japan expenses and childcare last week. Thankfully not due until the 20th or something, but it throws me off a bit to have such a large/outside budget amount outstanding so just paid it when my mom reimbursed me for the Japan portion. Then my credit card balance looks normal. & it doesn't look like I have an extra $3k to spend in my checking - hehe. No temptation.

It didn't clear the credit card right away (though it did the bank). I have been busy all week, but was checking all my balances today and still hadn't cleared. I Was thinking, oh lord, where the heck did it go? Just figured I'd have to call and straighten it out. Got sent off to space or something.

Then I remembered I have 2 Chase cards and am always worried about paying the wrong one in Bill Pay. Bingo. Paid the wrong card.

The only reason I have that stupid card in there is Chase denied dh's PS3 purchase so he pulled out the old car he hadn't used in 5 years and they accepted that charge. Still not happy about that. Glad his charge went through, but wondering why Chase would deny our regular card but not that one. ??? Unless they figured the odds were slim someone stole both cards. ? But anyway, so now my Bill Pay is all screwed up. But I keep it in there because if he does use that card ever for any reason I'll get an online bill. I'll have to rename it if I Can in the "bill pay" screen.

Anyway then I Was freaking out because I Could not find a statement for his stupid acocunt we never use. I know I have it somewhere with the login info I set up, but lord knows where it is. So I am frustrated. Mostly because I am pretty organized and have no idea where this can be. I finally realized (doh) dh has the card in his wallet. So I asked him to call and have them apply the $3200 from his old card to our newew/regular card. I will try to follow up with a letter tonight too. Get it squared away.

The reason I Tell all this is no matter how organized and on the ball you are, mistakes happen. It's why it is good to #1, pay your bill early to avoid problems. & #2, to have an emergency fund. If we don't get this straightened out on showing on the card by Friday, I will just send a check off from my money market account. Then we can worry about the refund, but at least I won't incur any interest. I Certainly have the cash, easily accessible, to cover this mess in the meantime, while it is straightened out. I don't expect it to be straightened out by the 20th when it is due, since it is dh's card and he has to call. But we'll see. I am not happy about losing interest if I have to dig so much out of the efund, but we'll survive.

But yes, & I can really be an idiot sometimes, hehe. It was a good wakeup call for me because ever since we bought that stupid TV I have way less checking float than I would like and I have been paying the bill much closer to the due date than I like. This could have really screwed me up if it was a regular bill, so I will be more careful.

Anyway, so far everything about today has been crappy. This is the least of it. Here's to a better rest of the day...

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$50 cleared my bank to my IRA & $50 to BM's UGMA so this whole automatic investing thing is getting off to a good start. Vanguard is giving me problems on LM's UGMA so I printed off a voucher for $100 for the year - will just mail a check next month or something. That's another one - all in dh's name so he will have to call to straighten out our issues and so I keep putting it off. But it's so little it matters little. Just was looking forward to the automatic part and the income averaging. So we'll see. I was curious what the minimum was and in these particular funds they can deposit as little as $100, so that is good. Can probably just make extra Christmas deposits for them when they get christmas money (if they don't get $100 we'll probably just add to whatever they get to make it $100. Our fam is not big on cash gifts overall. But they will probably get something).

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P.S. I forgot, someone at aerobics told me I Was "getting skinny." & I have lost 4 pounds. It has been VERY slow going but as long as I make progress I do not mind. Slow is good. But I mean 4 pounds might be generous. 4 pounds from maybe my peak. maybe a good 2 pounds since I have been going to aerobics (4 months?). So a little too slow, but better than nothing. BUT I dropped my birth control last week and lost a pound pretty quickly. VERY interesting. So we'll see. Since most of this 20 pounds I had gained was post-birth control. I had lost all the baby weight on my second child and then put on a load afterwards. I always thought it could be the birth control since it coincided (& it came on FAST), but I also had some hormone issues and you know nothing seems the same after having children. But I am getting optimistic that maybe a lot of this weight will start to drop off. My nicest work pants are getting too big. A catch 22. I have to lose a lot of weight to fit most the stuff in my closet.

I lost all this weight last year but my metabolism is just so shot. So I am having hopes that maybe my body is returning a little more to normal and it will be easier to keep off this time. (On the flip side I feel like I have been working harder and the fat has been very stubborn this time). The true test for me beyond losing the weight (which I know I Can do - it's not much) will be to keep it off during tax season. I am feeling optimistic I am creating a workout schedule I can stick with. But we'll see.

I wish this came so easy to me as finances, honestly. The principles should be the same, but I have serious food issues. If it wasn't for my husband I would be extremely overweight. He keeps me honest and eating good; cooks healthy meals, etc. But there is only so much he can do when I am off at work. I just grew up being able to eat whatever I want/whenever I want and I am thankful my husband has taught our kids such wonderful eating habits. He made some casserole with no veggies last night and I Was chowing down and both kids refused to eat it. So bizarre!!!!! IT was just such an usual meal to them. They love their fruits/veggies and have to eat what we make for dinner, or at least try it (once, twice, 3 times). Rules I have never lived with. I just eat with my emotions. So I have been thinking a lot it just takes a little self control like with finances, but it is just so completely different to me. Thankfully I have a husband who enjoys cooking and has wonderful/healthy eating habits.

& 6 to go?

I got mail from Macy's and they said give me 60 days for them to "investigate." Blech. I think they told me that 60 days ago...

But then I got a letter from Sears. ID Theft resolved. Card closed for good. Off my report. Out of my name. Woohoo.

Sears is under Citi along with 3 other cards so I hope that means all of those are pretty much taken care of.

Of the other 3, at least none of them were bigger balances. Well Lowes was big but I haven't heard anything from them in ages. I'll have to check the paperwork, I get the feeling maybe that one was squared away too. I don't really care if they rid me of responsibility from the card with $0 balance (mush as it shouldn't be any sweat off their back to just let it go) so I am least worried about that one. Mostly leaves Macy's which was the smallest balance at $900 or so...

Oh yeah I got a Macy's statement as well (in the meantime while they take 60 days to figure out it obviously wasn't me). But with this one they were nice enough to not have a minimum payment (like Zales). No payments for a while I guess? What is more disturbing - that you could get $25k credit so easy, or that you can get $25k credit so easy and you don't pay any payments for x months? Yeesh. I think since it is California and I filed a police report that the Credit Bureaus would block the info from my report even if the credit company recorded non-payments in the interim. So that is nice. The credit bureaus seemed to block this info easily enough without the "investigations being complete." But for the most part it looks like it will all be cleared up before any payments would be due (knock on wood).

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In other news yesterday I read something like 85% people pay more payroll taxes than income taxes. WOW! I actually looked at the site referenced and only found a 45% figure (which is still big). The Tax Policy Institute or something. I thin with the 85% figure they were trying to say that workers really shoulder the employer portion of social security by taking lesser wages so their employers could pay it. There is probably much truth to that. Must be the way accountants think since I think that about everything. You take from here it has to come from somewhere...

We are most certainly in this percentage though - our social security taxes are double our income taxes. & I am sure there are many in that situation. I think sometimes when people complain about the taxes coming from their checks they don't realize exactly what is coming out of their checks.

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I almost fell over listening to Dave Ramsey yesterday. For one he was annoying me because he was going on and on how only idiots even mention pets in their wills (well it was an older podcast). I was thinking about scfr's post about making arrangements for your pets - just make sure they are cared for, etc. I don't think it is an idiotic thing at all. Not everyone who thinks of their pets leaves billions to their pets (well most wouldn't obviously - hehe). Then he was screaming at all us morons for having credit cards for ease of use. I just rolled my eyes. Some lady called all appalled that a financial advisor at her kids' school recommended getting cards and paying them every month to build credit. Of course he freaked out. But he doesn't get that people need a credit score. I know those people who never had a card in their life and couldn't buy a house. Couldn't finance a car when things went bad. It really doesn't help average joe blow to be so adverse to the idea of a card. Sure why not pay inflated insurance premiums just because you have no credit. (Doesn't sound very smart). Then again maybe we should be fighting the system. Anyone who can get through life with no credit, well they can't be doing that bad, can they? I guess it could be an indicator of both extremes. But it seems like it could be relatively easy enough to be audited or something as an alternative to prove credit-worthiness. If you feel that strongly about the credit industry, I agree there probably should be some other alternatives to major credit risk. It's a mess. This 3 Credit Bureau is just driving me insane with this ID theft thing. Why the hell are there 3 Bureaus?????? Makes life 3 times harder for me. So to an extent I am for fighting the system. But in the meantime I don't find it that hard to just play along.

Anyway, I went on a tangent. I almost fell over when Dave said that the value of your cars should be no more than 50% of you annual gross income. I almost choked. Thought I heard wrong. So I looked it up. & yes that is what he recommends. Of course since he recommends paying cash I guess mostly we are on the same page. But 50% just seems awfully generous. (We've spent most of our lives well under 10%. & with 2 "new" cars today we are squarely at 25% and looking at no new cars for like a decade - so it will shrink back to our 10%
average soon enough).

I thought wow this is generous coming from Dave. I wonder what most financial gurus recommend. Just out of curiosity. So I looked and I saw the recommendation that car payments should be no more than 15% - 20% of your take-home pay, on a monthly basis. For one, what financial guru bases car affordibility based on payments? Blech. But 20%. Are they serious???????? I assure you this included no expenses but the car payments. I reread the articles looking for clues - they must be talking insurance, license and all. But no, this was just payments.

So that puts us at $750-$1k monthly car payment we could afford? Are they insane? No way. We maybe put away $400/month on average towards our next car purchases (2). & I have to say we have never had this kind of money for a car before. This is like as good as it gets for us. I could never see spending more. When we made six figures we bought an $8 car. We just don't get the whole car thing. It's a VERY nice car by the way. Small, but nice.

But it's ironic. I have been wanting to buy a $5k 3rd car. We couldn't justify keeping our convertible when we had our first child (insurance and all) but I feel we are getting much closer to buying another very nice, used convertible. By Dave's standards I could afford a $18k car I guess. I mean, heck, I do have the cash.

It's funny because we were watching a show the other day where a husband gave a really nice convertible to his wife on her 40th birthday. I was telling dh, hint hint hint. What a nice birthday present. I said how about at 35? LOL.

Nah, I am going to wait until I can pay cash for a nice $5k car. & fully fund our retirement. Maybe in 5 years. PErhaps. It's harder right now with dh's car being so reliable and worthless at the same time. No collission insurance. I can't really justify spending the cash for a car if his car could be totaled tomorrow and we could need it for that. Then again I would have a car for him to drive. HE would just hate it and we would prefer it be a car that the kids don't ride in for now. So it will be a few years...

But yeah, I realize these are maximums. But they just seem insane to me. Of course the sad thing is that most people I know would find these "rules" rather restrictive. I guess it's some middle ground to give a wake up call to people really buying more than they can afford, but throwing a bone to those who want new cars every few years. We could buy some 2 really nice cars on credit with $1k monthly payments. For sure. I am so glad we put all that money to our house instead though. Phew.

*Got signed up for balanced billing - both electric and gas. Gas told me they were going to bill me $30/month. I think our electric average is around $40/month. They didn't tell me the amount up front. But we'll see. I'll miss the $10 bills, but oh well, makes budgeting easier. (& I guess that I won't miss the $100 bills!!!!!!)

*Still hadn't gotten the paperwork to switch to metered water, but I guess they called dh today to say it is still in the works. August is a bad month, but metered water in September would be nice (will save $10-$15). Maybe October - as long as we get it by the really cheap winter months.

*Experian sent me a note that they deleted a bunch of crap from my credit report and will permanently block all of it. Woohoo. We'll see what Equifax says. Transunion was called by Citi (with me on the line) but they were the ones that had that horrid FICO score. If it doesn't bounce back up by next month I will write in for the "permanent block." Maybe should do regardless, since I swear they said they "removed stuff" (got that in writing) but nothing about a "permanent block." Maybe that has to be requested (certain states like California allows fraudulent stuff to just be permanently blocked from your report if you ask). I am also terribly confused by what the credit Bureaus do and do not share. They seem to share all the info with each other, but then others say they don't. From my experience they seem to be sharing all the info - if anything reports on one it reports on the others. I think I even read if you requested a block with one it will send on the info to the others to block as well. Well, we'll see. see if I get more confirmations or if I will have to pull more reports and send off for more block requests.

All the instructions and forms said you can only block what is showing, but I sent along the police report and they blocked everything that has shown up since I pulled the report - as much keeps trickling onto the report - so woohoo. Score one anyway for a tedious process. For one, Lowes has taken the balance off my report from day 1 but it still shows on my report (with a $0 balance). I assume this means it won't show up at all. Other places are still showing on my credit report with balances while they resolve things though I think most said they wouldn't. (Whatever...). IT should be a good month before I get anywhere near resolving all of this. Waiting for them all to officially "clear me" and take everything off my credit report. I think most quoted it as a 30-day process from when I sent in the affidavits (all signed/notarized/sent/received, so just a waiting game here on out.

*We weren't home all weekend, and yesterday was a LONG day (Marine World - went well - kids loved it). Tomorrow I am hosting a playgroup with like 10 moms and 15 kids I don't know. Oy Vey! Don't ask - long story... (Of course funny enough dh asks me what we are doing for dinner - LOL. I said - do you think we can afford to feed all these people? Play date is AFTER dinner of course. He was asking if he should pick up some pizzas...)

*Which reminds me I am SICK of pizza. We did the take/bake cheap yummy pizza thing last Monday for guests, had lots of leftovers (since dh bought 2 - told him we only needed one! ). Pizza Saturday for birthday party and then we went to visit dh's friends Sunday and they pulled out the pizza menu. We just looked at each other. "Sure, sounds great." (If I never see another pizza again). Well, we did get a lot of free pizza - so hey...

*Made a big deposit at the bank. My mom reimbursed me for all the airline tickets (like $3k) and I had kids' birthday money (transferring to Vanguard in the next month). I had been waiting until I needed it and was ready to transfer so it didn't just get spent... I mean I was going to transfer it regardless, but now I can just transfer the actual checks once they deposit. I was starting Automatic Imvestments for the kids in September. & then I had dh's focus group money - deposited the cash like a good girl.

*Dh was inspired by my dad to attempt pest control on his own. Woohoo. We tried in the past and he just wasn't helping me, lord knows I don't have the time. We found a cheap service for a while (who would only come when we needed it - thank you) but they gave up on wasps (too many injured employees and that is our only real problem, though I have seen more spiders than I have cared to this last year inside the house. We are lucky the house is air tight enough few get in though). I haven't balanced my disgust for chemical pest control with my disdain for spiders. It's irrational I know, but I just can't stand the things. Anyway, some guy came around with some insane quotes last week and dh wanted to sign up. I asked him to call around. We need someone to come once or twice at the beginnign of wasp season and that is about it. We don't need to pay $60 each and every month (nor do I want to spray that much as we try to be somewhat environmentally conscious). But after a year if no spraying something needs to give - indeed. So when we were talking to my dad over the weekend about frugalness or something dh got inspired to give it a whirl himself. We'll see. I just don't want him to get stung. But yeah my dad has always done the pest spraying for our home growing up. So he had some tips.

Which reminds me our guests from Canada came to the door and said, "You get tarantulas here???" Yeah, just want the arachnophobe wants to hear. They were going on and on about our BUGS which I found rather ironic. I know I wouldn't last a minute in the south myself. Maybe we should move north! IT wasn't a tarantula - just a really big spider. The thought will give me nightmares though. But yeah told them they hasn't seen nothing until they go spend a summer day in North Carloina - hehe.

*We decided my van needs new tires. Still 2 originals (2 blew but ran over bolts both times - not much you can do). I told dh I thought the used ones looked worn but he convinced me they weren't. We're pulling out the penny and I think he was guaging the wrong areas of the tire. So over the weekend his dad mentioned my tires looked pretty worn. (Van has about 45k miles on it and I am sure the 2 are original tires - probably crappy factory ones at that). So I asked my dad to check since he is the car expert. In true frugal fashion he tells me front tires are pretty iffy (should replace) but the back ones have 6 months. If he were me he'd wait 6 months on the back ones. But get the tires that last 60k miles. I am thinking if I am taking my car in and getting tires, and they are going to last 60k miles, might as well get 'er done. But that's my dad. We usually just have our mechanic guy do it (he advises us but we haven't taken the cars in much since we have 2 newer cars). So I asked my dad where he recommended and he recommended someone down the street from them in San Jose. He said he would call and get me a quote. Sounds good - next time we drive down - my dad will help me get a deal.

That being said I don't think our mechanic charged particularly much for the 2 or 3 times he replaced all my tires (I have gone through a lot of cars lately) so I will probably call him for a quote too. If they are that "iffy" on the front rather just get them done - can take them in tomorrow if I wanted.

Not a biggie, but then dh tells me he doesn't think his tires have ever been changed. I vaguely remember they have been but I couldn't remember when. The car has well over 70k miles. I figure he is insane. I haven't pulled out the paperwork yet (hardly been home) but at lunch I remembered to look at his tires. Clearly new. Probably replaced in the last year or 2, but the car is never driven. I was pleased to glance at his tired and see they obviously don't need replaced too - phew. I mean if they did - what are you going to do - we'll replace them - we have the cash. Safety first. But he was freaking me out. I'll pull out the paperwork and see when we got those tires...

Always something...

*Yesterday we spent $110 at Marine World (Discovery Kingdom or whatever - just changed the name). I was wrong. Our tickets were $30/each. & parking was $15. (Are they serious?) Of course if you looked at the prices the day without discount would have cost us something like $200 (tickets only - not even parking). Who pays that????????? Everyone we saw had a coupon of course. But they day was PERFECT - just dead as could be - not a lot of people. We did good! Kids had a blast. Spent $35 on food for the grand total of $110. Of course we were lazy and tired and had a $5 Taco Bell meal on the way home and stopped by Rite Aid for some 99-cent ice cream so made it a $118 day I guess.

I also made the observation that the more fit people had the fancier strollers yesterday - for the toddlers and preschoolers. IT strikes me as odd. I guess BM has never been a stroller fan (too much energy) and in the last few months LM has pretty much been done with his (pretty much after he had been walking just a few months). When we took them to SF zoo a few months back I was amazed how well LM but at the end of the night we had to carry him out and about killed us (he is a good 30 pounds). But yesterday we brought the stroller "in case" but left it in the car. Didn't need it in the least. Since we are more in shape carrying him at the end of the day exhaustion point was just a piece of cake. & I am just happy one less thing we have to pack next time. I have read that people are keeping their kids in strollers way too long (part of the whole obesity thing) and yesterday I really noticed it. I just think it was extremely ironic that the most fit people had the biggest strollers - LOL. Dh said it was a status symbol thing. I don't know - maybe. As for us, every time we have to pack (or more importantly, every time I have to REMEMBER ) one less thing, we do the happy dance of joy. I think we are about done with strollers... I say woohoo!

*THough I have been a little stressed lately about money (when am I not?) I am feeling rather at one with the financial universe all the same. Life is good. I left work early last week to hang out with BM at preschool "because he wanted me to." Sure, what the heck. Took yesterday off. Going to Japan in a few weeks. Dh and the kids are going to Florida as well in OCtober. Our savings is going in a positive direction for the first time since kids and one-income and all that. Life is good. What is there really to complain about. I already blogged that while everyone is "Going Back to School" we are enjoying the kids. Maybe it is because the kids are at a good age too. Moving past diapers and bottles (& strollers) and sleepless nights, it's kind of an enjoyable time. Easier to slow down and enjoy their innocence a little bit more without the complete exhaustion that comes with babies and newborns.

I've even been feeling less like working part-time is really going to be my goal. I want more time with the kids now - like it matters when they are in school all day anyway. Which means I might make an effort to work less the next year or 2 and then ramp it up when the kids are in school and give up on the whole part-time thing. Maybe... I mean if dh returns to work it will be an entirely different beast. But if he is not working, kids in school, my work schedule isn't so bad. I can compile my vacation and take a month off every summer and be home with the kids then if I like. I could come home every afternoon and work while they do homework. At least we can all be home together though - though we will all have our own work to do. It's an idea. I think I would probably be better off doing that and going for more unpaid time than the goal of part-time. I would just lose way too much. If I can vie for more unpaid time insetad, I wouldn't lose all my benefits and perks. Frankly, I don't really mind working full-time. I have had a time of it since LM was born. I think I have felt like I have been missing a lot more with the kids. But with LM sleeping better and getting to the gym and all that I have just been feeling so much better. Work has been going so much better. A good night sleep does make all the difference - it really does. I think with sleep and getting more fit and a clearer brain I am focusing more on how good we have it lately and so feel little need to complain and am rather happy where things are. I have just been on a bitch fest when it has come to work these last few months and I think just the stress and exhaustion. But things are going a lot better. Work is still crazy, but handling it better.

I just got my haircut - woohoo. I chopped off a good 8 inches or so I am sure. I prefer more shoulder-length hair but somehow it was 1/2-way down my back (heck I don't know if it has ever been longer). That being said I just chopped it in January - I swear my hair grows faster with age.

But anyway - I had a $9.99 coupon for Great Clips. I was able to walk in and see my favorite stylist with no wait. My beauty regime pretty much is a cheap haircut twice a year. I don't see the point of much else. I have given up on Super Cuts - too many bad haircuts (maybe didn't help that is where I went during my short hair stage - I decided I could no longer afford short hair since a stylist is way too expensive and would have to cut every few weeks, etc.). Great Clips can be hit and miss but I have had much better luck. I got this salon quality stylist though who can work magic on my hair with a quick cut (fast too). So I lucked out today. In and out in about 15 minutes - no wait - perfect haircut. Maybe a pound or 2 lighter - LOL.

Most all the beauty stuff I just don't buy into. I actually get a lot of compliments on my hair, and having the years I dyed and permed and styled, I have to say not doing all that stuff to your hair makes for some nice healthy hair. I wouldn't touch it with a blow dryer either. If I hadn't of wanted a cut I didn't really need one, which is why it had been so long, my hair was looking really nice even with the length. She is just that good.

Oh but anyway - my coupon was for like $5 off so I have a $5 tip. Might had been a bit excessive but I am thrilled to get such a good quality cut for $10. I'll probably get a cut in February again, before tax season. Not a big part of the budget.

In other news I am an idiot. Wanted to take BM to Gilroy Gardens Monday - took a day off - special day just for us. When I last looked it seemed they were open weekdays through August so I made a mental note to plan a trip when we could go on a weekday. (But since the weather is more like here was pushing it off all the same - didn't want to go on a 100-degree day).

I just popped online to buy tickets and last operating weekday for the year was last Friday. I messed up.

I am not sure if I can really justify taking off work if we don't do something like that. I am swamped. But I have some insane coupon for MArine World. Something like $20/each and kids free if we go on a weekday. It's open Monday. We might stay in town and do that instead.

We were going to drive 2 separate cars to San Jose tomorrow since BM and I were going to stay overnight and dh/LM weren't. Now it just doesn't matter. We figure we will save a good $20 or so in gas - Marine World will actually be a cheaper trip in the end.

Gilroy Gardens will have to wait to next year when LM can enjoy too. We'll survive. I am not going on a crowded weekend - you couldn't pay me. That one is a catch 22 because it is for smaller kids though. They'll outgrow it soon enough. We'll have to go early in the summer.