Well, my net worth is up $2600 for the month, or a little over $18k for the whole year. It was hitting $20k a few weeks back. So the overall downslide is from the market. However, I guess I am in a lucky spot as hardly any of our assets are in stocks, as I mentioned before. Planning to change that soon, but the more we can buy at a bargain, the better...

Of course losing a couple of thousand of dollars in a couple of weeks isn't fun either.

The interesting thing is I lucked into a couple of awesome CDs (that much more impressive now that the market is in a spin). My 5.7% CD expires in 6 months but I can renew it for another 8 months at that time at 5.7%. Sounding like a more awesome deal by the day. I also decided to keep my cash IRA in a CD (locked in 5.5% for 3 years actually) last fall because I just knew the market was heading for a tumble. I have learned my lesson since about market timing and all that - the second I invested it the market has been HOT!. However, this move may pay off. We'll see. I figure by the time it renews we will have so much in investments that I might keep a bit in cash. It depends. If all we're saving is 25% of our income for retirement, we really should go all stocks. & I figured in 3 years time I may be willing to move it into the market (hopefully in a lull). But if dh is working and we are saving more than 25% I don't mind playing it a little safe with good interest rates. We'll see...

Our retirement overall is up 5% for the year with market appreciation, so still not bad. Not that I expect it to end up for the year, but who knows. Still way ahead from where we were last september (up 15% or so?).

My "efund" is only $160 away from my goal, as of my paycheck today. I am going to drain $1k in September for taxes though. $1k in January. My overall goal is to get it there by 12/31. I may move any excess to retirement. Or just keep it as a cushion. We'll see. I am confident I can save another $1k by December and that I will get $1k for Christmas to cover the rest. I decided to do that rather than move backwards on cash again - by $2k at once. Kind of depressing. I keep feeling once I take care of this, this should be it! But there always seems to be something...

ETA: I Was incorrect. Efund sits at $12k today - OMG! I miscalculated my July contribution. Wow. I may only have to drain it to $11.5k for the IRS and can get it back to $12k by October then, probably. Sweet...

However, I didn't expect to be this far along so early in the year either. So it is cool. I am assuming by 12/31 I will have $12k to lock up in an efund untouched. From there we will add $5k/year for car/house stuff so we can always fall back on that if smaller stuff comes up. Once that starts to build, I mostly see the efund as untouchable except for large emergency (natural disaster or lost job pretty much). I think for now we have vowed not to drop it below $10k. But we got to get these ROTHs taken care of so can't commit the $12k just yet to efund...

& expenses for the month:



Allowance is negative because I returned some clothes.

Auto fuel was only $240, or $60 under budget (drove to san jose once too. & met grandma 1/2 way like 3 times? Awesome possum). The auto expenses are up because paid $250 net for dh's auto insurance (net of dividend check).

Dining we budget around $40 so were $13 over. But not bad considering we took BM to McDs twice for his birthday, ordered 1 Round Table Pizza & also went out for Mongolian BBQ. We took BM the other day and felt a little conflicted but just got him his own bowl. He generally orders kids meals these days but there they don't really have the option. But he seems way beyond sharing our plate these days. So we got him a bowl and they did not charge us. Sweet! I guess smaller kids are just free - so worked out.

Plus the funny thing is dh and I have met his mom 3-4 times this month to switch kids and she always pays for lunch so we hardly feel deprived this month with all the eating out. The kids always notice Grandma likes to go out to eat A LOT - quite a treat. As they have spend most of the month with her...

Groceries $521 were $21 over budget at face value. But the amazing thing about this month is it was the kids' birthday. We didn't spend a ton on gifts and we didn't spend a ton on the party. I think dh might have spent $100 at the grocery store for primarily party stuff (food) which was PLENTY. But we had a party for like 20 people and that was about ALL we spent. Usually July seems to be an expensive month for the birthdays so it is interesting to look at the budget and thing maybe only $21 over with the groceries and $13 over with the trips to McDs.

IT also means I think we are moving towards a $400 grocery budget. Which is just awesome. We have shaved almost 20% off the budget since I joined SA. That's all dh. Plus he has mastered the art of $50 groceries so every time he goes we get a 10 cent off per gallon gas coupon. ($50 minimum purchase required). I swear every time it hits the card it is $51 at the grocery store. I have no idea how he does that! Every time we fill the van I have a coupon - so it's sweet. Helping to minimize our gas costs too. Lately we have had enough coupons for both cars most of the time. Which also reminds me a shopping corner is opening on the corner so means less driving and more walking - woohoo.

Household is gardener

Interest - interest on the balance transfer fee ($75). Not a biggie. paid 63 cents, earned $20 or so on that particular BT. More my experiemntal BT - dh's had no fees and was twice as much so is going much better (though for a much shorter time).

Education was my aerobics class. Every thing I sign up for through the city I just put to education. I tried to pay for karate class online but it was giving me difficulties so can pay that in cash next week. (I will have to add a gym/physical fitness category though - makes more since. Maybe kids extracirricular class too - makes more sense than "education").

The weird thing about this month was that we had no "other income." How weird. Will have to make up for it this month. We have been doing pretty well on bringing in side income - at least $200/month. But this month was rather dry. Oh well. Budget was so good we didn't need it?

Medical included a $50 copay which I budget for.

Misc. - generally budget $150 (sometimes add in writing money as I consider it misc. spending but had $0 this month). Anyway, the gym sign up was around $200 so we kind of made an exception for that. That means we spent $100 on misc. otherwise. Included our expenses to go to the Redwood Forest, one trip to the movies (Ratatouille), Birthday party balloons and supplies, and various household items at Dollar Tree (mostly plastic plates for LM who isn't as good with adult dishes as BM is. Just weird because we never found the need before, but LM needs plastic!).

$150 over on misc. because of the gym which we intend to make up with some ebay selling this month.

Utilities - cable, internet, land lines, cell phones, sewer and water (which run $90/month for a flat rate here - insanity) means only about $80 was electric/gas. Not bad for the a/c being on pretty much 24/7.

July was another awesome month overall...

I think mostly it didn't happen overnight, but we are still whittling things down little by little. Like when I set our grocery and gas budget I just set what we were spdending on average. I might have even been a little aggressive. I think I will leave gas the same to allow a cushion for rising gas prices. But will move groceries down to $450 maybe next year. Maybe sooner. We'll see. In the meantime a good month means more to savings or more to enjoy, but then future increases won't be a shock to the system either. Plus since I usually do little more than keep the budget in my head and eyeball it (as anal as I am about money I do not enjoy strict budgets) I generally like to just use round #s. IT would be in my best interest to set a $200 gas budget and a $400 grocery budget, but I think that is a bit too aggressive. It is very psychological. I rather budget $800 for the 2 and cheer myself on every month that I am under! (BEcause overall it is an improvement from where we were...) Going for $600 between the 2 to keep round #s would just suck because we would always be a few dollars over, even if we got close. Yeah, budgets are psychological. For now I just don't want to mess with it. We are affording everything we wanted and then some, so I am happy for this year. We will revise the budget in 2008 though, regardless. I might consider setting a budget of $450 & $250 for them, accordingly. We'll see how it pans out.

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P.S. If you were practically living in poverty, why on EARTH would you rent a bouncy house for your 1-year-old's birthday? What is WRONG with people? Hell will freeze over when I rent one of those contraptions - LOL. Ugh. I generally get annoyed when people say "I would never buy "x" or "y". We all have our priorities. But yeesh... The middle class has been annoyiong me with their extravagant birthday festivities for wee little ones as is, without people who are a paycheck away from homelessness deciding that this is a good idea. ?????